Many GMO studies have financial conflicts of interest

[wumpus]

5 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

Patent rules appeared maybe about 200 years ago. Human history lasts 200 000.

Patents predate that by quite a bit.  But often they were a quick and dirty means of giving a court favorite an easy source of income by giving him a patent on (for example) distilled alcohol [actually I'd expect something easier to enforce, but it was vastly more likely granted for 'having the King in (gambling) debt' than for invention].  I suspect that the "founding fathers" of the US gave patents that name out of distaste for them (ok, that is probably a reach, but Ben Franklin wasn't willing to limit his inventions for profit's sake).

11 hours ago, Starman4308 said:

That is, as point of fact, blatantly false. Patents require:

#1: That it be non-obvious to those practiced in the art

#2: It must be novel

#3: It must be useful

#4: It must be of patentable subject matter (i.e. not patenting the Sun)

I'll agree that is what you will find at the patent and trademark office, but I have grave doubts about the practical effects.  Last I heard (mostly when outraged in the 90s, so I could well be wrong).

#1: "practiced in the art" often means a new BSeng degree, or "unhireably unskilled during a downturn".  Also expect a patent lawyer to make the obvious sound obscure
#2: This is the real kicker.  And it typically means "nothing published describing the invention*." (I'd assume that user- or repair-manuals could be used in court cases). It should be obvious that the patent examiner needs physical proof that it wasn't novel (although I imagine that the level of "proof" varies between examiner)
#3: If this were true the West Texas patent court would have to close down.  On the other hand, I'd have to assume that patent lawyers very rarely have to stretch to prove this, and few patent examiners worry much about it either.  Getting a patent is too expensive (let alone defending one in court) to bother with useless things.
#4: This changes rapidly.  Public key partners appeared to have patented the "idea of all public key cryptography", something far beyond anything patentable even a decade earlier.  Even their very specific equation seemed to stretch what was patentable (I doubt many equations were patented before that).  The US Supreme Court recently had to call the patent office on taking common business practices and adding "on a computer/on the internet" and patenting that.

* It shouldn't take long to realize that pretty much any legal system of patenting inventions will come down to documentation.  So if Welsh's patents a peanut butter and jelly sandwich without the crust** and the patent examiner can't find a published example on such, Welsh's gets the patent.
** The actual product is pretty remarkable and has a shelf life similar to other snacks.  https://www.google.com/patents/US6004596  (and apparently they won an initial court case and lost the appeal). http://www.nbcnews.com/id/7432980  Can't remember if the defendant was a restaurant (I must have heard about it between Welsh's early win and the appeal) or an actual competitor.

4 hours ago, Vanamonde said:

This thread has wandered quite far from its topic. Please return to it. 

Is changing the title an option?  I'm not sure how many allowable things are available for what constitutes a "GMO study" and what you expect to find.

Also note that Starman438's statement on "what is a gene" was likely critical in understanding GMO and a great proof that not locking thread earlier was a good move.

[magnemoe]

55 minutes ago, wumpus said:

Patents predate that by quite a bit.  But often they were a quick and dirty means of giving a court favorite an easy source of income by giving him a patent on (for example) distilled alcohol [actually I'd expect something easier to enforce, but it was vastly more likely granted for 'having the King in (gambling) debt' than for invention].  I suspect that the "founding fathers" of the US gave patents that name out of distaste for them (ok, that is probably a reach, but Ben Franklin wasn't willing to limit his inventions for profit's sake).

I'll agree that is what you will find at the patent and trademark office, but I have grave doubts about the practical effects.  Last I heard (mostly when outraged in the 90s, so I could well be wrong).

#1: "practiced in the art" often means a new BSeng degree, or "unhireably unskilled during a downturn".  Also expect a patent lawyer to make the obvious sound obscure
#2: This is the real kicker.  And it typically means "nothing published describing the invention*." (I'd assume that user- or repair-manuals could be used in court cases). It should be obvious that the patent examiner needs physical proof that it wasn't novel (although I imagine that the level of "proof" varies between examiner)
#3: If this were true the West Texas patent court would have to close down.  On the other hand, I'd have to assume that patent lawyers very rarely have to stretch to prove this, and few patent examiners worry much about it either.  Getting a patent is too expensive (let alone defending one in court) to bother with useless things.
#4: This changes rapidly.  Public key partners appeared to have patented the "idea of all public key cryptography", something far beyond anything patentable even a decade earlier.  Even their very specific equation seemed to stretch what was patentable (I doubt many equations were patented before that).  The US Supreme Court recently had to call the patent office on taking common business practices and adding "on a computer/on the internet" and patenting that.

* It shouldn't take long to realize that pretty much any legal system of patenting inventions will come down to documentation.  So if Welsh's patents a peanut butter and jelly sandwich without the crust** and the patent examiner can't find a published example on such, Welsh's gets the patent.
** The actual product is pretty remarkable and has a shelf life similar to other snacks.  https://www.google.com/patents/US6004596  (and apparently they won an initial court case and lost the appeal). http://www.nbcnews.com/id/7432980  Can't remember if the defendant was a restaurant (I must have heard about it between Welsh's early win and the appeal) or an actual competitor.

Is changing the title an option?  I'm not sure how many allowable things are available for what constitutes a "GMO study" and what you expect to find.

Also note that Starman438's statement on "what is a gene" was likely critical in understanding GMO and a great proof that not locking thread earlier was a good move.

Patents became critical then company paid research replaced the gentleman with an hobby as main driver for innovation. Large scale governmental research came later. 
Royal grants predated it but did not work for the industrial age improvement race. 

1) practicing in the art is that you can not patent something who is common knowledge in that industry or craft. People outside will often come up with brilliant ideas who has been used for generations in the industry. 
2) it has not been published or used public, nor fall under 1)
3) yes its a bit weak, an new way to display adds is not of public use  still some will pay to use it and can not use it without the patent. 
4) is an open court definition. The purpose of patents is to increase the rate of innovation by making innovation pay of, on the other hand you don't want to restrict productivity or promote patent trolls.


 

[Diche Bach]

15 hours ago, magnemoe said:

Patents became critical then company paid research replaced the gentleman with an hobby as main driver for innovation. Large scale governmental research came later. 
Royal grants predated it but did not work for the industrial age improvement race. 

1) practicing in the art is that you can not patent something who is common knowledge in that industry or craft. People outside will often come up with brilliant ideas who has been used for generations in the industry. 
2) it has not been published or used public, nor fall under 1)
3) yes its a bit weak, an new way to display adds is not of public use  still some will pay to use it and can not use it without the patent. 
4) is an open court definition. The purpose of patents is to increase the rate of innovation by making innovation pay of, on the other hand you don't want to restrict productivity or promote patent trolls.

So to get this back on topic: innovation has rarely if ever been about charity, i.e., it has almost always been about financial conflicts of interest. Not much new as far as GMO's go.