[phryk]

Indeed. It's pretty obvious that most patents are owned by corporations who paid someone to do the work and not by the inventors themselves. My personal assessment is that in contemporary times, patents only slow down progress and fill the pockets of already-rich people.

That said, I am wary of anything environmentalist since those people often seem to not have done even the most minute amount of research on their topics and then continue to spread misinformation or plain lies (see the anti-GMO people for instance).

The mentioned site for example, seems to imply that plant/animal patents will diminish biodiversity ("The organisations behind No Patents On Seeds are especially concerned about […] biodiversity.").

I have no clue how granting patents on plants and animals is supposed to diminish biodiversity. Won't new plants and animals increase biodiversity? I mean yes, without the patents you could crossbreed and remix GM and other plants more freely which would boost the increase even further, but even a small increase is still pretty much the opposite of a decrease and dismantles the argument.

And before someone gets into cross-pollination and other ways of patented species overtaking 'natural' species habitats: For that to happen you need the GM species to be vastly better at reproducing. The chances of this happening without it being a goal of the development (which it usually isn't, since they want you to buy shit again and again…) are pretty small. As far as I know most GM organisms are even made sterile.

And while the risk of GM organisms "taking over the world" is relatively slim, naturally occuring species do this kind of stuff right this moment. The so-called 'Killer bees', some species of fish and crustaceans, red fire ants. et cetera, et cetera.

Many people have this sense of nature being balanced and that if we don't touch it, it'll all be alright ("Man made everything bad!", the environmentalist version of original sin). This is complete and utter bullshit, just doesn't work that way. Ecosystems are not static, they are extremely dynamic and never balanced.

[tehwalrus]

> Won't new plants and animals increase biodiversity?

The issue here isn't that - new plants and animals may be good or bad, but that's an environmental argument. My concern is allowing people to patent biochemistry/DNA sequences, which is clearly bad.

EU law doesn't allow software patents, perhaps it's time to define DNA as a computer program, thus making it illegal to patent it.

[ronaldx]

>My concern is allowing people to patent biochemistry/DNA sequences, which is clearly bad.

I was thinking about this earlier but I concluded that it was morally no different than any other form of patent - and modestly comparible to patents on new drugs (or software, indeed).

For example - the protection afforded by patents on new drugs is said to justify the amount spent by the pharmaceutical industry on R&D/drug discovery.

Why is the argument different for seeds/DNA sequences, or any other invention that benefits humanity, if it is?

[Retric]

The problem seed manufactures get to enforce useless patents. Step 1, patent junk DNA. Step 2, prevent farmers from using seed banks due to useless patent. Step 3, profit.

Net value to society... Nothing.

[ronaldx]

This argument is against patenting 'junk' DNA: but European and American patent law both require a patent to have industrial application and to be novel.

So, I find it unlikely that this situation should apply in practice (although it is worrying that it might apply). And, I don't find it an argument against patenting useful non-junk DNA.

Note: I'm probably on your side, at least in that I dislike implementation of patent law in general.

[jrkelly]

Well computer programs are protectable by copyright. I work in this field (at a startup) and I think it may be better if we were allowed to protect engineered DNA sequences with copyright as you suggest. Would be less expensive and faster than patents.

There is actually a company looking to take this idea to court: http://www.nature.com/news/bioengineers-look-beyond-patents-...

"Last year, the company petitioned for US copyright protection of the DNA sequence for a fluorescent green protein, without success, but has launched an appeal. Its plan, says Christopher Holman, a law professor at the University of Missouri–Kansas City who is working with DNA2.0, is to pursue the appeal until the issue is heard in court."

It took a similar case to make software copyrightable: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_copyright#History_in_t...

[phryk]

I think it may be better if we were allowed to protect engineered DNA sequences with copyright as you suggest.

Aren't patents at least not applicable to non-commercial uses? Using copyright seems even worse.

I'm against any legal protection of any DNA sequence. This seems like the sort of thing that doesn't just have the potential to greatly stifle innovation but also to take on a very dystopian shape…

[jrkelly]

>This seems like the sort of thing that doesn't just have >the potential to greatly stifle innovation

Could you be more specific? I'm not sure how we'd be able to do our business (years of work to develop an engineered microbe) if someone could just take it when we're done. Maybe we could keep it as trade secret and let no one else see it, but that's probably even worse long term for innovation.

I'm for a balanced approach to IP, but total removal of IP would basically prevent any real innovation in biotech with the tech of today. No one would do the original development, it's just way too expensive.

[phryk]

Could you be more specific?

Yes, sorry. I tend to only look at the long term where my personal version of a better society would be one where at least all the production of all the base needs (if not more) is automated and we have deprecated money.

Commercial development will need some sort of protection if it is to be profitable, of course. But there we can for instance directly say that these sorts of protective measures are not applied at all to non-commercial applications.

My thought of train is normally more rooted in the open source way of development, which I think will become more dominant in the next few decades. The resulting openness would enable more cooperation, even between similar projects. Something which is pretty much explicitly excluded in the competitive model.

IP might be needed for competitive development, but I think cooperative development bears much higher potential for innovation.

Sorry if this is a bit garbled intellectually, I'm in the process of picking up my stuff and heading home for the weekend.

[srisa]

I have no clue how granting patents on plants and animals is supposed to diminish biodiversity. Won't new plants and animals increase biodiversity? I mean yes, without the patents you could crossbreed and remix GM and other plants more freely which would boost the increase even further, but even a small increase is still pretty much the opposite of a decrease and dismantles the argument.

With the proliferation of patents and the marketing blitz by these companies, we'll have only a handful of varieties that are sterile. There will be no new varieties coming out of natural cross pollination because we are left with sterile patented varieties.

Ecosystems are not static, they are extremely dynamic and never balanced.

Exactly. The viruses, bacteria and pests are evolving naturally; they are increasing their resistance to the existing pesticides. With the sterile varieties, there is no evolution, no adaptation to the changing environmental conditions and the changing pests.

[tehwalrus]

There are some short stories by Paolo Bacigalupi[1] set in a dystopian post-oil future where the only fuel is grown from sterile GM crops, any non-GM varieties are killed by various GM pests (introduced by the patent owning companies). Obviously such a world works very differently to our own, with no global movement or trade; everything is hyperlocal, including information flow, and energy storage is done with mechanical springs, not electricity or chemical potential.

At least one story is about someone who reverse engineered the GM/pest resistant crops to be non-sterile again.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paolo_Bacigalupi - at least two of them are in the "pump six and other stories" compilation - I can't remember which are which though.

[ant512]

I found his full-length novel on the same topic, "The Windup Girl"[1], to be particularly insightful and disturbing.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Windup_Girl

[phryk]

With the proliferation of patents and the marketing blitz by these companies, we'll have only a handful of varieties that are sterile. There will be no new varieties coming out of natural cross pollination because we are left with sterile patented varieties.

That makes sense. But it only seems to apply to species that have already been thoroughly reshaped by humanity (pets, food and similar). Not what you normally think of when someone goes crying about biodiversity. To me it just seems like a more efficient/adapted successor generation to our current designed species.

Exactly. The viruses, bacteria and pests are evolving naturally; they are increasing their resistance to the existing pesticides. With the sterile varieties, there is no evolution, no adaptation to the changing environmental conditions and the changing pests.

Yes, and with biotech we're able to adapt these design-species much faster than 'natural' evolution ever could.