Patenting Life
,----[ Quote ]
| You, or someone you love, may die because of a gene patent that should
| never have been granted in the first place. Sound far-fetched?
| Unfortunately, it's only too real.
`----
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/13/opinion/13crichton.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
Related:
Salt and Software
,----[ Quote ]
| This broad ruling is being exploited by some to force developing nations to
| add stringent controls and to enforce many controversial requirements. [1]
| [2] This includes patent clauses that prevent and impede the manufacture
| of generic AIDS/cancer/malaria medications. This despite the fact that
| generics are recognized as an essential tool in preventing and controlling
| the effect of these crippling diseases and disastrous epidemics. [1, 2, 3].
| Appalling. But let us not digress.
|
| [...]
|
| Because of TRIPS, you may now be in infringement of this patent. Are
| you using a hash table in your code? You may now be in infringement
| of this patent.
|
| It is sad that we as developers have to worry about these issues. We
| are not lawyers or legislators and share no overwhelming desire to
| be involved in those fields. One does not need accreditation in patent
| law to realize that these too-loosely defined laws can be exploited
| by some megacorporations to impinge upon the ablity of others to
| compete with them. The vast majority of our corporations in
| developing nations are small to medium sized. We simply cannot
| afford the battalions of lobbyists and lawyers and legal costs
| associated with G8 style campaigns.
|
| So. Shouldn't our legislators in developing nations be questioning
| these laws? How is it in the interests of our populations, our
| businesses, our industries and our economies, to be beholden to
| these laws? I believe many of our non-monopolist counterparts in
| G8 nations share our concerns.
`----
http://www.localfoss.org/Salt_And_Software
Biology Goes Open Source
,----[ Quote ]
| Some of the world's biggest drug companies are finding that
| their genetic research is worth more to them if they give it away.
`----
http://www.forbes.com/business/2007/02/12/novartis-genes-diabetes-research-biz-cz_mh_0212novartis.html?partner=rss
http://tinyurl.com/2vqssl
Scrooge and intellectual property rights
,----[ Quote ]
| A medical prize fund could improve the financing of drug
| innovations
|
| At Christmas, we traditionally retell Dickens's story of Scrooge,
| who cared more for money than for his fellow human beings. What
| would we think of a Scrooge who could cure diseases that blighted
| thousands of people's lives but did not do so? Clearly, we would
| be horrified. But this has increasingly been happening in the name
| of economics, under the innocent sounding guise of "intellectual
| property rights."
`----
http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/333/7582/1279
|
|
