Remember Acacia' thuglike bullying of webmasters?

I think they shouldn't be able to patent anything that is living,

but it has already happened and is becoming more and more frequent; so it's a bit scary in terms of the future. People should be concerned about this, courts have already upheld a few of the patents.

I think patents should be a "before the fact" thing... not an "after many years" thing.
In Acacia's case, they should not be allowed to purchase someone else's patent long after people have been using the technology, sit on it until it's profitable enough and THEN go after everyone using it for back royalties.

It should be: If you don't demand royalties right out of the gate, then you default on the precedence and miss the opportunity.

In the case of this stem cell thing, I can understand their patent... it's huge to have the patent on something like that. However, in the interest of advancement, particularly in science, there should be limitations to the authority that a patent provides. You should certainly force compensation (licensing fees) but you shouuldn't be able to just deny everyone so that you can be the only players in the field.
That's very much akin to having a monopoly in business, which we all know is not allowed either.

You raise really good points regarding a "use it or lose it" approach. However, not all technological innovations have the same adoption horizon. Some take off quickly, others require other innovations in other areas before they are integrated in a highly lucrative system.

It's definitely cause for concern.

" Rescind The Bayh-Dole Act

Congress decided that discoveries in Universities were not being made widely available to the public. So they passed this law to allow a University to sell their research and discoveries for their own profit. Even when it has been funded by tax payer money.

Tax payers finance research, it then bears fruit, the researchers sell it for their own and or institutional gain, after which the drug or technology is sold back to the tax payers at top dollar for something they helped Finance. "



Yep Real fair of them.


And with the topic of the thread here is a Big thanks to Matrix content.

Death to the Patent Trolls!

Patent pimps is more like it. Also, the "defensive patenting" done by many companies to cast a wide shadow on potential uses really puts a damper on innovation...