[ExI] Gene Patents: Good or Bad?

Ben Zaiboc bbenzai at yahoo.com
Thu May 27 19:53:13 UTC 2010


I think this discussion has gone slightly off the rails.  The question was:
/Gene/ Patents: Good or Bad?
Not:
Patents: Good or Bad?

Everyone seems to be talking about the merits of the patent system in general, whereas the issue is about patenting genes and gene sequences, which is a different question.

IMO, apart from the commercial considerations of patenting a process or invention, the question is: Does/should anyone have the right to patent something like a gene or a sequence of genes?  I think the answer is pretty obvious, but maybe I'm too attached to the idea that someone else shouldn't have legal rights over something that my body has had since birth, that nobody invented, to think rationally about it.

Ben Zaiboc


      





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