Whose property?

The whole intellectual property thing is a bit of a mess, particularly when it comes to the more general areas of science, as opposed to specific drug discovery. I've mentioned before, in the 70's Kohler and Milstein made monoclonal antibody technology freely available, and the human race has benefited from advances made in both academic research and diagnostics as a direct result. PCR technology was patented and licensed, and instead of taking over (as it should have done) instead was stifled and sidelined.

And so we come to the issues of genetics-related patents. It's a can of worms because companies do invest large sums of money to perform research in order to try to make money later. At the same time, often they do nothing more than read what's already been written in our DNA and patent the basic sequence. Where's the invention in that?

So I read this article with interest. Knowing how patents are written - with a view to locking out other workers - I could well believe the claims to be far-reaching and overly broad. Patents usually seem to claim stuff that's "obvious" if you're a specialist in the field, and despite the apparent safeguards of not being able to patent prior art, public domain info or obvious developments, the cost and difficulty of fighting a patent is so great and the rewards relatively small that there is seldom incentive to do so.

I do hope that the USPTO takes a careful look at both the facts and the ethics behind this application.

Oh, FWIW don't believe what you read in the newspapers or see on TV. Venter's group did not create 'artificial life' by any stretch of the imagination, although they push current techniques a bit further than they've been pushed before.