Monday, March 20, 2006

Patent Law

This Essay Breaks the Law by Michael Crichton

If you invent a new test, you may patent it and sell it for as much as you can, if that's your goal. Companies can certainly own a test they have invented. But they should not own the disease itself, or the gene that causes the disease, or essential underlying facts about the disease. The distinction is not difficult, even though patent lawyers attempt to blur it. And even if correlation patents have been granted, the overwhelming majority of medical correlations, including those listed above, are not owned. And shouldn't be.


He is right. The faulty rules the United States has been slipping into greatly harm society.

Is the US Patent System Endangering American Innovation? (pdf format)

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