What is Digg?86 Comments
- styryx, on 10/12/2007, -13/+34I read all the stuff about RIM and Blackberry, but bugger me America, you're country is F U C T
- rosemat2, on 10/12/2007, -2/+22Stuff like this only seems to be getting worse and worse. Why would anyone in the patent office grant a company a patent for part the the HUMAN genome?!
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -5/+21To all those that don't want to register...
UN: bimbyflam
PW: bimbyflam
(compliments of www.bugmenot.com i love that site)
As for the story... I completly agree.... its WWWAAAAAYYYYY over due for reform... and having it reformed by the *ia's is just a bad idea, in fact.... having ANY influence by big companies is a bad idea.
Although it would never happen..... I think we should have the laws created by INTELLIGENT people... hoenstly, would you rather have laws made by people with IQ's over 160? or IQ's under 50 (like bush and most of his staff)
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http://www.findacritter.com - Lumiras, on 10/12/2007, -1/+14A well written, interesting article? Now this is a rare find
- osrevad, on 10/12/2007, -2/+14The difference is that your title and summary suck compared to this one.
- loup, on 10/12/2007, -1/+12Yes, it takes an enormous amount of research and money to map various parts of the human (and other animal) genome, but regardless of the amount money and time spent, the human genome is a part of nature. The genome as a whole or in part should not be patentable. Various methods of mapping the genome, therapies developed using the knowledge, and anything else that can be done using this knowledge should be patentable. The money and time spent in mapping the genome is simply a part of doing business, just because the cost was large does not entitle the person that spent the money to any special treatment
- Ghazi, on 10/12/2007, -0/+9Maybe because it was written by a bestselling novelist. :)
- Godric, on 10/12/2007, -1/+10Almost any tremendously useful invention will by its very nature seem totally obvious once you've been introduced to it and have used it for a while. But that doesn't mean it was obvious to the inventor or the huge mass of humanity before the thing was invented.
And nothing is created in a vacuum. One of the definitions of creativity is taking existing ideas and combining them in new and interesting ways. Afterall, isn't a lightbulb basically just wiring and a glass enclosure? - DisposableRob, on 10/12/2007, -3/+12login from bugmenot
Username: etphonehome1
Password: phonehome - buss, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9Humor me for a bit.
If cigarette companies can be successfully sued for a product that they have patents on that causes damage to its users, then can't a biotech company be sued for any damages that result from a virus? I don't see why not. By owning a patent, the biotech company effectively becomes responsible for the results of the product (or so the precedent that has been set tells us). Does anyone own the genome to the flu? I had that a few weeks ago and I could sure use some compensation for my suffering.
The quickest way to change something is through obscenely high court costs.
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http://claimid.com/buss/ - infra172, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9Actually in "State of Fear" he started writing the book to prove global warming theory but after doing a little research realized it was based on a bunch of half-assed assumptions and bogus data.
- rodon, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8So if a biotech company can own a disease like the article mentions, then can I sue that company if my life is greatly affected in a negative way by that disease? Seems like patents need some kind of reform. An ancient system originally meant to protect ideas, now being widely exploited. Something needs to be done.
- superal1394, on 10/12/2007, -4/+11Oh yeah it is. I mean, come on!? how evil and greedy do you have to be to sue some one because they capitalized on a good idea?
- Agret, on 10/12/2007, -3/+10No idea what your on about so i'll just bury you.
- davidv, on 10/12/2007, -7/+13Aside from the actual patents and etc, I love Crichton
- Oh, and by the way: I own the patent for "essay or letter criticizing a previous publication." So anyone who criticizes what I have said here had better pay a royalty first, or I'll see you in court.
Haha - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7how about trademark reform? I got screwed because some a-hole has the exact opposite name I do.......and I've been in business longer............still dont get a trademark.
- tek1024, on 10/12/2007, -2/+8ad hominem: adj.
1. appealing to feelings or prejudices rather than intellect
2. marked by an attack on an opponent's character rather than by an answer to the contentions made
Cf., the above comment. - Lewie, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6God I love Crichton! Fantastic writer! Very intelligent and witty!
My Philosophy of Ethics professor did a few lectures on patents and copywrites. Of course we all agree plagarism is bad. Intellectual rights should be granted. But when business model's can be patented (Netflix anyone?), and even factual data like Crichton wrote about, we must take a look at these outdated patent and copywrite laws.
The fact that software can be protected for 20 years may seem reasonable at first, but then we think about how software evolves over that time. Generally software will not last more than 5 years on shelves. Anything beyond that is just denying a few ingenious people to take that code and perhaps make something even better. I'm sure a few people would love to have Windows 95 source code to tweak. Microsoft is not making money off it anymore (I hope). If some of their current code is derived from 95, maybe that will cause Microsoft to write something new. - rhawk301, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6Posted on Short Text
http://www.shortText.com/8r5q8 - Mongoose, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6I love Michael Crichton. Very good article.
We had a discussion in my biology class a while back about ethical issues that might come with the expansion of genetic screening, including the scenarios brought forth in this essay, as well as genetic discrimination. My teacher said that people have patented certain tests, but not necessarily entire genes. This is getting out of hand fast, and something desperately needs to be done. - karmasutramonky, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6some one with hepatitis C should sue the company that owns it. fight stupid with stupid
- kawaiirobo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4actually I do agree with what Michael Crichton is saying, but what was posted by spikes, combining two existing products is worthy of a patent, solely due to the novel idea of it. Sure anyone can think of it, but who does is the one who deserves to profit, I mean I'm sure everyone here was alive to remember non-vibrating controllers, but did any of you think of it, no, it's not that I'm saying anyone here is unintelligent, I'm sure most of you are, but a novel idea is a novel idea.
- DisposableRob, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6Hard to find dupes when the original doesn't resemble the link's headline nor mention the fact that the writer is a well known author.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -4/+8Why all the knocking on State of Fear? Why is it that Global Warming is such an irrefutable truth that anyone that challenges it is considered a heretic, a raving lunatic with an agenda? Do you all realize that a long time ago, people were treated the way Chrichton is being treated for advancing such ludicrous ideas as Heliocentricism, or, even better, a round planet. Does the name Galileo ring a bell? Has anyone actually bothered to not only read State of Fear, but look into its science and allegations? Or did everyone balk the minute the realized it was saying the un-sayable: that Global Warming doesn't exist?
- seanalltogether, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5Colbert Report on State of Fear, good stuff :)
http://www.comedycentral.com/sitewide/media_player/play.jhtml?itemId=58887&ml_collection=&ml_context=show&allowMotherload=true&ml_comedian=none&poppedFrom=_shows_the_colbert_report_videos_most_recent_index.jhtml& - Godric, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Dinosaurs in a Zoo was an awesome movie.
- d03boy, on 10/12/2007, -5/+9Do your own research and you'll soon realize that there is no proof at all that global warming does exist. I was in 8th grade when I did research on it so I think you can probably do it too.
- schmiggyjk, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Was state of fear that bad? Last book of his I read was Prey, which i enjoyed.
Say what you want about the guy, but he knows his crap. He is definately on point in this discussion. - spikes, on 10/12/2007, -4/+7I still don't understand why they can patent vibrating controllers. Its just 2 little motors. Existing ideas, combined into one, SHOULD NOT BE ***** ALLOWED IN THE USPTO.
- markos, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Also read this review of State of Fear by Crichton:
http://www.friesian.com/crichton.htm
"The global warming debate involves several layers of questions. (1) Are average global temperatures rising? (2) Do human activities have anything to do with this? (3) Could such warming occur without any human involvement? (4) Does it matter? (5) Could such warming, if it is happening, be, on the whole, desirable? The short answers here are (1) perhaps, (2) perhaps, (3) yes, (4) perhaps not, and (5) possibly." - Ignathius, on 10/12/2007, -10/+13US courts. what a shame.
- LKBM, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2According to one Slashdot comment I read some time ago (so I /know/ it /must/ be true!) when we say a part of the genome is patented, it's actually the particular test used to /detect/ it not the chromosome(?) itself. Is this true? Any clueful peopel want to fill me in so I don't have to actually take the time to look it up?
- sgbooth, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2You can't patent an algorithm. You can only patent a method of using an algorithm.
- Junto, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4You can also sign up and give the NYT marketing department completely useless bollocks. Personally I find that more fun. You can be a student on $150,000 and living in Bolivia! I like dodgeit.com for quick and dirty email addresses myself. Same concept though. Spread the love....
- johndi, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I don't question that global warming is happening, just why it is. I seem to remember something called an Ice age and that Alabama used to be a sea. Recently they found that storms on Jupiter are increasing to the point it's developing a second giant red spot, that Saturn is having greatly increased lightning activity, and that the polar caps on Mars are also shrinking. Great scientists don't try to prove their beliefs, they experiment and found out why something happens. Global warming proponents tend to be prophets of doom, preaching beliefs. Often they do it for profit, many own patents to competing technology or are members of political activism groups that are quite lucrative (John Adams, the president of Natural Resources Defense Council was paid $368,342 in 2001). Like all political fights both side lie, and neither want to win, there is too much money in war whether with weapons or words.
So global warming is happening, and has happened before, we can't stop it, but we might make it worse. The Earth will survive, and humans will adapt. Some people will make a tons of money and others will die. Sounds like business as usual. - Dan™, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Haha... that Michael Crichton...
- rockintom99, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Sorry, but i have patented the E. Please re-write the article without it, or i will be forced to sue :)
- dragoth, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Beowulf clusters don't apply here, gosh!
- monsieurgrand02, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1All I have to say is...Wow.
- sohlemac, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1It would seem that you could be sued if you had specific knowledge about those genes.
- quesera, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Erm. Humored. But:
Cigarette companies get sued because they are the producers and sellers of the product that causes damage, and because they didn't/don't effectively communicate the dangers of said product to consumers.
Whether you agree with that or not, (I don't -- cigarettes don't kill people, stupidity kills people) there's definitely a difference between a company that has manufacturing plants and distribution channels and marketing strategies for a substance than one who just has an exclusive license to information about one.
I'm definitely not defending their right to that license, considering that in some cases, *I* am the manufacturing plant and distribution method and even the marketing strategy for that agent...and so is everyone else in the world. And my parents did it for years before, et cetera, et alii, so it is properly owned by the entire species, if that can be called ownership.
I realize that the state of reverse engineering art is very high, which makes "trade secret" protection inadequate to recover research expenses. My theoretical libertarianism (small ell) breaks down on this point -- I would vote for increased spending on basic research sciences. - tonyspencer, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Well, yes precisely. Patents are there to protect human ideas and endeavour. Existing stuff in nature hardly qualifies, and I can never understand how such things could even be granted patents in the first place. Don't they employ intelligent people at the USPO?
In any case, everyone's genome is unique.
Now all I've got to be careful of is that my arrangement of words here doesn't break Service Marks either, another weird American concept. I think that is an attempt to make you run out of language you can use so you can't complain! - tonyspencer, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Patently absurd...
- Godric, on 10/12/2007, -14/+15Because it takes a non-trivial amount of research to isolate the genes you're looking for and figure out exactly what they're doing and how.
Say what you want about patents and intellectual property, but they are an essential part of an economic system that has funded, created, and mass produced more gadgets, medicines, tools, cultural products, etc than any other. Do laws and procedures need to be adjusted? Yes -- and you'll find that they are constantly being challenged, tested and refined. Focusing on a few ridiculous parties is not neccesarily representative of the entire system. - MacGyver, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1nope, wasn't a problem with the hosts file. I think it's something with my ISP, because I went to dnsstuff.com and tried to ping nytimes.com and it didn't get a response.
- zer0blivion, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Check your %windir%/system32/drivers/etc/hosts file, it could be that nytimes.com is blocked/redirected to localhost.
If someone knows how I can put a backslash in comments, let me know. - EtherGnat, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Agreed. I've always enjoyed his novels but seem to either strongly agree or disagree with everything else he says.
- superalamar, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1patents are for inventions, NOT DISCOVERIES
- Grimdotdotdot, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Happily, the UK isn't quite as bad as the US - yet.
It's only a matter of time, I suppose. -
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