From Slashdot: A blogger talks about the issues with genetic modification and the patenting of DNA at Download Aborted.
Very interesting read. I found this comment very insightful:
"It gets worse. If you go to a hospital and they take some of your blood for testing. They can keep the blood sample if they detect some anomoly that they decide to research. Then, years later, they patent their discovery which is based on your blood. They don't have to give you a dime.
Think it's fantasy? It's already happened and the blood donor lost in court and the company has patented his DNA. IIRC, it centered around a cancer treatment and anyone that wants to research this particular cancer treatment needs to get a license from them research hospital that owns the patent."
I find it incredible that a hospital or company could patent the DNA from a man's blood, forcing other people to licence the cancer treatment from the patent holder. Sure, the hospital/researchers DID do the research to find this treatment, but the DNA is the property of the man that had the blood sample, so shouldn't he be the patent/copyright-holder?
Also consider this… since organisms and beings that have this genetically modified DNA are bound to mutate, does the company that has patented the DNA also own the IP to the mutated DNA? If the DNA was obtained by another company and it mutated and produced a better form of wheat, could they then patent that, preventing the other company from profiting from the mutation?
It's a very hazy area, certainly. Also, does a company that patents a certain DNA strain for wheat have the right to do so? They did not create all of the DNA, and as such, not all of it belongs to them. The 'creator' of the strain is ambiguous. Is it God (if you believe in a God)? Is it the Earth or nature itself? Or is it the farmers who originally brought wheat grains to a particular region?
One of the other points brought up in the comments is that the patent doesn't cover the DNA strain so much as the methods of distribution of the DNA strain:
"Let's remember that the essence of copyright/patent (well copyright anyway) monopoly is less ownership of the content and more ownership of the means of distribution. Monsanto couldn't give one rat's ass less about its patented gene. It cares only about how it gets around, and that no one receives it without their say-so. The content is only a means to the sleeper hold on distribution."
Hopefully these sorts of problems won't increase, and we'll have laws and guidelines to prevent these issues in the future…
UPDATE: There's a copy of a speech from Percy Schmeiser (from the Schmeiser Vs. Monsanto case) given in Decemer 2003, in a comment in the Slashdot thread.
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