Appeals Court Says Patenting Basic Medical Diagnostic Process Is Just Fine
from the yikes dept
Over the summer, we wrote about an important lawsuit under appeal at the Federal Circuit, Prometheus Laboratories v. Mayo Collaborative Services, which looked at whether or not basic medical tests could be patented -- in this case, a method of calibrating medicine dosages based on a patient's metabolic response. Doctors were pretty freaked out by this idea that you could patent a method that seemed like basic science. While a lower court agreed, the appeals court has gone the other way and said that the method is patentable. The patent holders insisted that this patent was necessary because if it didn't get the patent it "would likely have a chilling effect on future medical discovery." That, of course, is ridiculous. The idea that you need a patent on basic diagnostic procedures to have people come up with them is ridiculous. Some think that there's a decent chance the Supreme Court will take up this case as well, but until then, we've got yet another case of patents being used to actively put lives at risk by telling doctors they can't do basic diagnostic procedures without paying up.
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Filed Under: basic science, medical diagnostics, patents
Companies: mayo clinic, prometheus labs
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Not helping people
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Re: Not helping people
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Re: Re: Not helping people
This is not a capitalist system of health care, because there's so little competition and fluidity. The government has regulated the business extensively, which gives incumbents more or less free reign to offer whatever standard they want. The problem here, for instance, is an overbroad patent -- which is a monopoly on a specific process that the government provided.
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Re: Re: Not helping people
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Re: Re: Not helping people
Of course, if you don't want progress, socialize medicine.
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Re: Not helping people
Again: This, like most all problems, can be solved with correctly applied explosives.
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Sick Apeeals Court Judge "Just give me some pills to make me better"
Doctor: "I'm sorry, but due to patent problems exacerbated by you, I can't do any sort of testing on you to determine the appropriate dosage, because your drug plan won't pay the licensing fees to the lab holding said patent."
Sick Appeals Court Judge keels over and gets replaced (hopefully by someone more enlightened)
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Prior Art anyone
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Rightful lawsuit?
While I don't think something of this nature should be commercialized, the patent holder does have some ground for dispute. Whether the technique is patentable should be a separate issue in my mind.
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But any time something is considered "basic science" or "fact" within a group of practitioners, it should be considered public domain, and not subject to IP protections.
An IP attorney, and those whose primary income comes from practicing law (such as Court Judges) may very well view this as something that seems unique and interesting to them. But, it doesn't mean that a large group of practitioners, outside of the legal sphere of influence, don't already apply it every day haven't already accepted it as "fact" or "basic science."
And this is where we often run into the problem with the governance of IP law in general-- the way patents are granted is a problem because patent applications are often reviewed and granted by those who are not actively involved in the practice.
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Ummm ....
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Re: Ummm ....
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Patenting Basic Processes
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patent evaluation
I'm pretty sure there's money in licensing that!
How about a patent on evaluating political candidates. That means you would need a license before you can vote.
Then at last folks would be forced to make an informed decision before voting. Since that has never happened before, I'm pretty sure there is no prior art to this.
--GJ--
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Time to patent the method of safely ingesting dihydrogen monoxide
Or how about a patent on the method of obstructing standard scientific progress with unnecessary and irrelevant patent licensing standards.
At least we don't have 'database' patents yet, or one of these greedy companies would dump all the current drug info into a single database, patent it, then sue any other company who tried to even USE the name of an existing drug. And don't even think about it, I'm patenting this method so that when database patents are allowed in the US, I can sue all those greedy companies and make my fortune....
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Re: Time to patent the method of safely ingesting dihydrogen monoxide
For those unfamiliar with dihydrogen monoxide (also known as DHMO) and its dangers, check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dihydrogen_monoxide.
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patents vs chemistry 101
I can just hear some doctor defending it now. "What patent infringement? My lab tech learned that test in Biochem 101."
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Of course, Bilski is set for argument before the SCOTUS in November, so what effect a decision re Bilski may have on the rationale employed by the CAFC in Prometheus is not clear at this point in time.
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