Bioperl: Re: Open Source and Bio questions

[Paul Gordon]

Of course, this is all a little off topic, but still interesting.  
Lookup the patents in the US Patent Office database.

http://164.195.100.11/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2Fsearch-bool.html&r=0&f=S&l=50&TERM1=gene&FIELD1=TTL&co1=AND&TERM2=sequence&FIELD2=TTL&d=curr

It seems that not only are sequences patentable, but so are specific
oligonucleotide primers and more.  From what I can tell, companies just
making blanket patents, and waiting for someone to challenge them.  In
doing so, they can lay first claim to most anything associated with the
gene.  To repeat what has been said before, I don't think there have been
many challenges or uses of these patents so far, so there meaning is
unclear.  It will take a legal battle to determine what the patents mean.

I always though patents were for inventions, not discoveries. Just my
$0.02 worth.

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