[ExI] intellectual property again

Dave Sill sparge at gmail.com
Tue Mar 9 21:49:22 UTC 2010


On Tue, Mar 9, 2010 at 4:40 PM, JOSHUA JOB <nanite1018 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Let's take the example of a patent on a newly created gene that can be used to produce a certain medicine (doesn't really matter what), that could previously only be produced at high expense in limited quantities, but now can be produced at low cost in giant vats of bacteria, allowing widespread access to the new medication. I do want to stress that this is a designed gene, something novel not originally found in nature (as such genes, themselves, are ambiguous in my mind as to whether they can actually be considered patentable, since they were not "created" by anyone).
>
> Such a project likely was not cheap, and cost a significant amount of time and resources for that company to produce. Obviously it is a big bonus to society that such a gene be created. However, if someone could then simply take a sample of the bacterium, or an text document containing the DNA sequence of the gene...

Is there some reason the gene and modified bacterium couldn't be trade
secrets? Then all they have to do is not disclose the details of the
gene or allow release of the bacterium.

-Dave



More information about the extropy-chat mailing list