Broad Institute takes a hit in European CRISPR patent struggle
A decision from the European Patent Office (EPO) has put the Broad Institute in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on shaky ground with its intellectual property claims to the gene-editing tool CRISPR. EPO yesterday revoked a patent granted to the Broad for fundamental aspects of the technology, one of several of its patents facing opposition in Europe.
In the United States, the Broad has had better fortune. It has so far prevailed in a high-profile patent dispute with the University of California (UC), Berkeley. Last February, the U.S. Patent Trial and Appeal Board ruled that although a team led by UC Berkeley structural biologist Jennifer Doudna had first laid claim to the use of CRISPR to cut DNA in a test tube, the use of the method on human cells by molecular biologist Feng Zhang's team at the Broad was still an advance.
But in Europe, a dispute that has gotten much less attention could derail several key Broad patents. The patent just revoked was filed in December 2013, but to show that its claims predate competing publications and patent filings from UC and other groups, the Broad cites U.S. patent applications dating back to December 2012.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 22 2018, @07:02PM (5 children)
why is a publicly funded institution/grant programs allowed to patent anything? at most they should be able to obtain a patent for all the nation's citizens.
(Score: 3, Informative) by number6x on Monday January 22 2018, @07:49PM (1 child)
Stable Stannous Fluoride was patented at the University of Indiana [google.com] and licensed for Crest toothpaste. For some time, only Crest had fluoride toothpaste thanks to their license. This was one of the most financially lucrative patents from a university.
Patents make much more money for research colleges than football teams and sports (sports are usually a larger cost, overall).
Two of the other largest money making patents for universities have been Gatorade, for the university of Florida [espn.com] and the nicotine patch from [abqjournal.com] New Mexico Tech [nmt.edu].
An interesting fact about Dr. Frank Etscorn, inventor of the nicotine patch is that he grew up in tobacco country in Kentucky and his father was a tobacco farmer.
The tax money from states does not even come close to covering the cost of running a major university. The universities are encouraged to find new and innovative ways to make money for themselves. Some are better at it than others.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by pdfernhout on Tuesday January 23 2018, @02:29AM
The intro to something I wrote over a decade ago: http://pdfernhout.net/open-letter-to-grantmakers-and-donors-on-copyright-policy.html [pdfernhout.net]
"Foundations, other grantmaking agencies handling public tax-exempt dollars, and charitable donors need to consider the implications for their grantmaking or donation policies if they use a now obsolete charitable model of subsidizing proprietary publishing and proprietary research. In order to improve the effectiveness and collaborativeness of the non-profit sector overall, it is suggested these grantmaking organizations and donors move to requiring grantees to make any resulting copyrighted digital materials freely available on the internet, including free licenses granting the right for others to make and redistribute new derivative works without further permission. It is also suggested patents resulting from charitably subsidized research research also be made freely available for general use. The alternative of allowing charitable dollars to result in proprietary copyrights and proprietary patents is corrupting the non-profit sector as it results in a conflict of interest between a non-profit's primary mission of helping humanity through freely sharing knowledge (made possible at little cost by the internet) and a desire to maximize short term revenues through charging licensing fees for access to patents and copyrights. In essence, with the change of publishing and communication economics made possible by the wide spread use of the internet, tax-exempt non-profits have become, perhaps unwittingly, caught up in a new form of "self-dealing", and it is up to donors and grantmakers (and eventually lawmakers) to prevent this by requiring free licensing of results as a condition of their grants and donations. ..."
See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-dealing [wikipedia.org]
"Self-dealing is the conduct of a trustee, an attorney, a corporate officer, or other fiduciary that consists of taking advantage of his position in a transaction and acting for his own interests rather than for the interests of the beneficiaries of the trust, corporate shareholders, or his clients. Self-dealing may involve misappropriation or usurpation of corporate assets or opportunities. Self-dealing is a form of conflict of interest."
The biggest challenge of the 21st century: the irony of technologies of abundance used by scarcity-minded people.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 22 2018, @10:39PM (1 child)
They are not 100% public funded. What's your percentage threshold whereby they must assign the patent rights to the public?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 23 2018, @11:46AM
0.00001%
(Score: 3, Insightful) by TheRaven on Tuesday January 23 2018, @11:02AM
Because some bright spark realised that they can spend less public money on research if research institutions get some of their funding from patent licenses. They fact that this has an overall negative impact on the economy doesn't matter too much, because politicians can blame that on other factors and it's probably hidden by the latest bubble anyway.
Oh, and governments in the US and UK have been pushing the idea that the free market solves all problems for a few decades, so applying market forces to research by rewarding the institutions that are best able to extract patent royalties from their work must be good!
sudo mod me up
(Score: 5, Insightful) by pipedwho on Tuesday January 23 2018, @01:36AM (1 child)
The problem with all these patents is that the bar is far too low on that tiny bit of inventiveness / change that takes something that exists and adds something that is in parallel development by multiple entities that are working on the problem.
IMO, patents should be kept secret for at least 12 months on application. And if any other publications or patent applications appear detailing the same 'invention', the patent is effectively voided by being 'obvious to someone skilled in the art' or an inevitable evolution on a technique or technology. The reasoning here is that usually a public discussion or paper is released that gives everyone working in the field the same insight to 'advance' the state of the art. It is not useful to then treat the first to the post in the inevitable rush of applications to have a monopoly on an otherwise obvious and possibly fundamental implementation concept.
Patents are there to make sure things end up in the public domain and discoveries that might have otherwise never been disclosed, get disclosed. They aren't there to make money for people that game the system or apply for patents on things where the increment to the state of art is based on something that is otherwise clear to other researchers in the same field.
(Score: 3, Informative) by canopic jug on Tuesday January 23 2018, @06:25AM
It was revoked not just because of the specific patent being bad, but of a whole class of patents being inappropriate [techrights.org]. Several problems there include the EPO [techrights.org] management and the organization's way of bringing in money. Both prioritize quantity over quality. The EPO used to hire skilled patent examiners, yet they were forced by the management in directions which are harmful and ultimately unproductive. The trend there seems to be now to try to avoid keeping full-time staff by providing horrible stress and eliminating job security. Odds are now that any new application is handled by interns.
Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.