Conquer Club

I tihnk the supreme court needs to overturn its ruling that allows big corporations to patent genes, its jsut too corrupting, and gives them too much power.

This Article is a good example of how it can corrupt even small farmers

Its horrible that small farms can be shut down, sued, and/or lose their organic status if pollen from the farm next door happens to get into their crops. The fact that large corporations can sue family run farms for that is PREPOSTEROUS!

here is where i invite any opposing views (preferably coherent, with some evidence)

if they are allowed to patent those genes, when do they start with the human genes...like for the genome project...so you have to pay to make a child with certain genes...i mean, you know thats gonna happen eventually...

You can patent the process, you can patent the brand name, but you can't patent the DNA. It's more overreaching than anyone gets.

So, Levi's has no right to patent their product?

No, this is like the pharmaceutical company that made nexium trying to patent the color purple. The point is if you allow DNA to be patented, every crop with that DNA would become their intellectual property which is nonsense. It can't be controlled either so the practical application is akin to rounding up all the illegal immigrants and deporting them. It just isn't possible.

s.xkitten wrote:if they are allowed to patent those genes, when do they start with the human genes...like for the genome project...so you have to pay to make a child with certain genes...i mean, you know thats gonna happen eventually...

i believe human genes are different in everyone, so overall it would take to much time and to much money to do that to humans...

s.xkitten wrote:if they are allowed to patent those genes, when do they start with the human genes...like for the genome project...so you have to pay to make a child with certain genes...i mean, you know thats gonna happen eventually...

Ah, the eventuality of the Gattaca state.

Well, the one major benefit is that though Americans may seem to take sex for granted, they would be very miffed if someone tried to interfere with the ability to make their own genetic decisions.

The paying for a child with specific genes makes sense, if you're asking a cloning company or genetics lab to put in the labor to adjust the DNA of a child to your specifications.

The biggest fear I have about gene patenting is when companies patent the genes of plants indigenous to various countries in the world and stop locals from growing the plants they "own."

They should have a patent for production of genoms. But if a person (farmer for instance) owns a plant, then he owns its reproductive potential.

vtmarik wrote:
The biggest fear I have about gene patenting is when companies patent the genes of plants indigenous to various countries in the world and stop locals from growing the plants they "own."

Don't worry vtmarik. The laws are only valid if they are enforcable. Do you think that there is an army in the world that could stand up to BILLION of hungry Chinese an tell them that they cant grow rice. Lol that would be a War OF Terror. For the non-chinese side of course

mandalorian2298 wrote:Don't worry vtmarik. The laws are only valid if they are enforcable. Do you think that there is an army in the world that could stand up to BILLION of hungry Chinese an tell them that they cant grow rice. Lol that would be a War OF Terror. For the non-chinese side of course

I know of one case where a court upheld the company's claim to the genetic code of an obscure indigenous plant somewhere in or around India, despite claims by locals that it wasn't invented by the company.

I remember reading about it either on Reuters or BBC News, but I can't quite recall the specifics.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/genes/article ... 85,00.html

just a gene patenting for dummies

anyways, you CANNOT patent genes in humans.. you can patant ways e.g. to test on having certain gene's, e.g. certain hereditary cancer genes ect., but NOT parts ofa human body...

also, in the past is has happened that someone got a patant so braod that it influenced future research.
however.
the benefits of a patend system outweigh the harm of not having any incentive to doing research at all.
people usually like to get paid for doing something.
patents do no more then make it possible to gain a reward in selling good products

I completely agree SirSebstar, if you synthesize a gene and put it into corn or whatever, you ahve every right to patent it. The real sticky situation comes in when some of the pollen from your corn gets into a neighboring field's corn and their corn start to produce the protein that gene codes for. According to the courts, you have every right to sue your neighbor, and if your neighbor was certified organic, they lose that title, and all the work they put into developing a strain of corn the old fashioned way has jsut gone down the drain. Shouldnt' THEY sue YOU for ruining their crops since you couldn't properly prevent your pollen from getting onto their property?

Also, most gene research being done for this is to get the corn to naturally produce pesticides, or people liek monsanto developing a super strain of corn, but adding a gene so it will only grow if the farmers use monsanto fertilizer. I woudl lament the research if it were doing mostly good, but since the majority of it is for pure profits i think the reserach DOESN'T outweigh the patents