Open Source Biology
A very interesting commentary on this idea can be found at
Catallarchy:
bq. I’ve been meaning to link to this article on open-source biology by David Cohn from last month’s Wired. Though some favor intellectual property protection from a consequentialist perspective by arguing that it creates incentives necessary for such work to be performed, the other side of the argument is often overlooked. Intellectual property is artificially created scarcity that gives monopoly privilege to first-movers but also creates disincentives for investment and research for those on the outside looking in.
On the contrary, Jefferson believes patent restrictions have compromised billions of people who should be benefiting from new diagnostic tests or improved genetically modified crops and medicines.
For example, biologists in Kenya might be eager to create a genetically modified sweet potato that could allow farmers to use fewer chemical fertilizers. But if a company owns all or part of the gene sequence, DNA fragment or the mechanism in question, the scientists’ hands are tied unless they can pay a licensing fee. The corporations that own such patents won’t invest in research unless they know a market is waiting for the product.
bq. In response, some scientists are turning to the open-source model for future development.
bq. The trend in this country is towards greater and greater regulation of the pharmaceutical industry. Contrary to the beliefs of most left-liberals, this will only make the major pharmaceutical companies relatively more powerful. The system of drug development is headed for stagnation from the overbearning influences of patent privilege, the FDA, the legal system, and political favoritism.
bq. A much better model for drug development, in my opinion, would be the open-source model. For months, I’ve been meaning to write a post on how open-source drug development would work and what advantages it would have over the status quo, but never got around to it. Perhaps one day, I will.
Very interesting observation -- it is the ever growing wall of restrictions that is hamstringing the development -- to see something interesting happen in a reaction, to spend a few weeks isolating it, you run it up to legal and they tell you that this has already been patented. The owner of the patent may not be using this reaction but they own the rights to it and your company needs to decide whether to license it or to bag it and start with something new. Patenting gene sequences is another example of this being a bad idea.
I remember a few years ago about someone taking a huge number and trying to copyright it so that future music, when in digital format, would certainly include parts of that huge number and therefore be in copyright violation. This attempt was tongue-in-cheek but it highlights this problem wonderfully...
Posted by DaveH at February 7, 2005 9:02 PM