[ExI] intellectual property again

Emlyn emlynoregan at gmail.com
Wed Mar 10 01:48:43 UTC 2010


On 10 March 2010 09:21, Rafal Smigrodzki <rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Tue, Mar 9, 2010 at 4:49 PM, Dave Sill <sparge at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> 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.
>
> ### This won't help, since you can almost always easily
> reverse-engineer the gene from the protein.
>
> Rafal

Plus, the idea of patent laws in the first place was to encourage
people to release information into the public sphere about their
technological advances, rather than hide them as a trade secret; it
was seen that everyone hiding their innovations was stifling progress
in aggregate. So the idea was to grant inventors a temporary monopoly
on their idea in exchange for making the details.

Note that there was no concept of "intellectual property" when those
laws were created. That's been a very effective (revisionist)
rhetorical trick employed by interested industries mostly over the
course of the second half of the 20th century.

-- 
Emlyn

http://www.songsofmiseryanddespair.com - My show, Fringe 2010
http://point7.wordpress.com - My blog



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