[david-given]

I've never understood why people patent organisms. That's not an ethical thing --- I understand why people want IP protection.

It just seems like the wrong mechanism. Isn't the goal of restricting copying of your engineered organism better suited to the copyright system, rather than the patent system? Patents are for processes, right? But an organism is a thing, not a process. Isn't making an illegal copy of that thing a copyright violation?

[aroch]

Patenting an organism that you've tweaked, tuned and bent to your will is, in the end, no different than patenting a unique alloying mix or manufacturing machine.

They aren't patenting the organism per se, they're patenting the processes they've developed that make use of the organisms as the scaffold/factory. In the case I outlined previously of a yeast making a drug, you would want the patent on the cellular machinery that you've built to make the drug, which is the process.

[avar]

No, they're patenting the organism, or the end result. If you come up with an entirely different process to tweak the same organism by happenstance it's still covered by the patent.

This is pretty much the definition of how patents differ from copyright law, if I word-for-word write come up with the same work as you and I can prove that I didn't copy yours, it's not covered by copyright law.

With patents it doesn't matter that I came up with it on my own, you own the rights to the end result.

[Dylan16807]

That's an argument against patents existing at all. It's not really relevant to a discussion of what counts as patentable, because such a discussion assumes that patents are a valid mechanism.

[btilly]

Patents aim to trade a temporary bad result (monopoly) for a permanent good result (incentives to invent stuff).

Discussing exactly how bad the temporary bad result is informs discussion of when that trade-off is worthwhile. And this is true whether or not your conclusion is that patents are never OK or only sometimes OK.

[Dylan16807]

When discussing whether X should be patented, it is appropriate to discuss the trade-offs specific to X.

It is a poor time to discuss trade-off generic to all patents. Focusing on them shifts the discussion away from the issue at hand, and toward a political stance that people have already heard.

avar's post does the latter.

Just like in a topic about whether to vote for a specific tax levy, it's inappropriate to talk about whether property taxes as a whole should be abolished.

[omginternets]

>Just like in a topic about whether to vote for a specific tax levy, it's inappropriate to talk about whether property taxes as a whole should be abolished.

Making the argument that a given problem is recurrent is very constructive: consideration of the generic problem can provide arguments for prioritizing your problem as it relates to X. This is especially true when present instances of a problem affect future probability of the same problem occurring.

This is notably the case in law where jurisprudence makes laws progressively more difficult to repeal.

[avar]

    > That's an argument against patents existing at all.

No it's not.

It's not an argument for or against patents, I'm pointing out that @aroch is wrong about them "patenting the processes".

That's not true for most of these patents, they're patenting isolated organisms, compounds or genes. I.e. the end result, not the process.

What incentives we should give individuals and corporations to advance biotechnology is another matter.

[Dylan16807]

>That's not true for most of these patents, they're patenting isolated organisms, compounds or genes. I.e. the end result, not the process.

Organisms and genes are machines. There's nothing new about patenting specific machines.

Could they really get a patent on "bacteria that secretes X" that would stop you from doing it in a completely different manner?

But if you insert the same gene into the same bacteria using different equipment, that's no better than making the same patented gear with a different manufacturing method.

[talideon]

There's nothing stopping you from doing that, even with a patent in place, so long as your mechanism for secreting X (such as using a different base organism) is different.

To give an analogy, if somebody invented and patented the reciprocating piston engine, and then somebody else came along and invented a rotary engine, such as the wankel engine, the inventor of the former wouldn't have a claim against the latter because, while the result is the same (a drive shaft gets turned), the mechanism is different. Sure, it's possible that the inventor of the former could threaten the inventor of the former, as many patent trolls do, but legally they wouldn't have a leg to stand on.

Now, if the gene itself is the critical part of the 'invention', and not the organism, then taking that same gene and inserting it into a different organism still leaves you open to patent infringement. But that assumes the gene itself has been engineered, as opposed to having been found in an existing organism.

[nickpsecurity]

Exactly. It's why we tried to fight that crap back when they first tried it.

[aroch]

I'm not so sure, how is the end result any different than patenting a better manufacturing technique? That happens all the time in the macro-world.

Again, I'm not sure how I feel on whether it should be patentable or not. But, at least as I understand it, their intent is protection for something they've spent millions/billions developing -- no different than the process patents we have now.

[shostack]

Except it gets really interesting down the line once we create a new intelligent life form.

How would you feel if your body, consciousness, and everything you were was patented?

[hugh4]

I guess I'd prefer it to a situation where anyone at all could make a clone of me on their 3D printer slash uterus.

There are an awful lot of ethical and legal considerations when custom-designed intelligent organisms become possible, I'm not sure if IP is high on the list.

[logfromblammo]

If you want to copyright an organism, you had damned well better remove its ability to copy itself without your permission first.

As much of the utility in modified organisms is that they do copy themselves without your help, it seems as though the patent system would be much better suited, because there the enforcement burden is to prevent a human from using the organism to accomplish a specific purpose.

People sometimes forget that laws are pointless if they are not enforceable.

[aeorgnoieang]

> People sometimes forget that laws are pointless if they are not enforceable.

Or worse than pointless; actively harmful.

[cookiecaper]

Since copyright terms often exceed 150 years, I think we're better off with patents, which last for 20 years.

[chc]

In seeking to patent an organism, they are treating the novel organism as an invention. Copyright doesn't protect purely functional elements, only creative ones, which is why we have the idea of patenting inventions — so patent seems like the right system in this case.

[NoMoreNicksLeft]

Patents are for inventions. For mechanisms. It's only in the last few decades that it has been otherwise.