Matthew and All, (01)
Thank you for the response ... (02)
1. Yes ... I did mean to say "Yes! ... finally ... but the article
ended in a somewhat troubling note" (sorry for mistyping "troubling"
to "trouble") which you did pick up; thanks. (03)
> [ML] ... It seems to me
> that Justice has taken the position that genes are patentable when
> "something new" has altered their biological significance--be these
> "man-made" mutations or their placement in a new "non-naturally"
> occurring biological context. (04)
[ppy] that wasn't what I find "troubling" -- in fact, I rather like
the DoJ position (although that remains a personal opinion, and
discussing whether genes should be patentable is outside of the scope
of this forum.) What I found "troubling" was the assessment that "the
Patent Office opposed the new position" (but was overruled by other
agencies) which that article ended in. (05)
> [ML] I also think the same holds true for taxonomies and especially
> ontologies. Here it is the placement of specific words into a new
> structured context where these words take on specific meaning(s) that
> are a consequence of this contrived context. Similarly, the
> ontology/taxonomy as a whole takes on new meaning as a result of the
> unique combination of its components. (06)
[ppy] I would be *very* cautious in making that statement. (07)
There are good reasons why the jury is still out ... and this is the
exact subject that, we, as a community, could investigate, and help
inform those who will need to rule on it. I assume you have had a
chance to go over the intricacies presented at the earlier OOR-IPR
mini-series (ref.
http://ontolog.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?OpenOntologyRepository_IPR )
or the recent postings on the thread under the subject "Copyright in
Taxonomies: Leading case in US law (ADA v. Delta Dental)" (ref. say,
http://ontolog.cim3.net/forum/ontolog-forum/2010-10/msg00280.html ...
and, http://ontolog.cim3.net/forum/ontolog-forum/2010-10/msg00303.html
... etc.) (08)
I would probably treat taxonomy and ontology (and the range of
artifacts that lies on the broad ontology spectrum) a little
differently ... maybe, one might even have to deal with different
types of ontologies differently (foundational vs. domain ontologies,
or ontology-on-natural-phenomena vs. ontology-on-human-inventions, for
example.) (09)
One would need to be very specific about whether one is talking about
"patentability" or "copyrightability" (reason I mentioned this was,
because we were talking about "patentability" all along, and you
switched gears to "copyrightability.") (010)
... to some extent, you have covered some of these caveats in the rest
of your message already. (011)
> [ML] The fact that the words may be derive from a preexisting
> vocabulary should be of no more consequence than the
> copyrightability of an artist's collage that uses derivations of other
> works to produce their own unique work/message...but not being
> an attorney, I cannot say exactly what these consequences are.
>
> Furthermore, I think that the engineering of certain ontologies may
> warrant a representation of a significant work of invention (depending on
> the uniqueness and non-obvious nature of these engineered
> components)--which would indeed be separate from the taxonomy from
> which the ontology is derived. (012)
[ppy] "certain" and "may" are the key words here ... which makes it
an interesting subject to investigate. (013)
ALL: please advise your thoughts on the matter ... note that I have
changed the subject line, to keep the focus relevant. It (the subject
line) is pretty broad now. We will start splitting that into more
focused thread as the conversation develops, hopefully. (014)
Thanks & regards. =ppy
-- (015)
On Sat, Oct 30, 2010 at 11:48 AM, matthew lange <mclange@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Peter et al,
> I don't find the end of this article troubling at all. It seems to me
> that Justice has taken the position that genes are patentable when
> "something new" has altered their biological signifigance--be these
> "man-made" mutations or their placement in a new "non-naturally"
> occuring biological context.
> I also think the same holss true for taxonomies and especially
> ontologies. Here it is the placement of specific words into a new
> structured context where these words take on specific meaning(s) that
> are a consequence of this contrived context. Similarly, the
> ontology/taxonomy as a whole takes on new meaning as a result of the
> unique combination of its components.
> The fact that the words may be derive from a preexisting vocabulary
> should be of no more consequence than the copyrightability of an
> artist's collage that uses derivations of other works to produce their
> own unique work/message...but not being an attorney, I cannot say
> exactly what these consequences are.
> Furthermore, I think that the engineering of certain ontologies may
> warant a represention of a signifigant work of invention (depending on
> the uniqueness and non-obvious nature of these engineered
> components)--which would indeed be separate from the taxonomy from
> which the ontology is derived. (016)
> On 10/30/10, Peter Yim <yimpp1@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>> Fyi ...
>>
>> http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/30/business/30drug.html
>>
>> "Reversing a longstanding policy, the federal government said on Friday
>> that human and other genes should not be eligible for patents because
>> they are part of nature. The new position could have a huge impact on
>> medicine and on the biotechnology industry. ...."
>>
>> Yes! ... finally ... but the article ended in a somewhat trouble note,
>>
>> " ... While the government took the plaintiffs’ side on the issue of
>> isolated DNA, it sided with Myriad on patentability of manipulated DNA.
>>
>> Myriad and the plaintiffs did not comment on the government’s brief by
>> deadline for this article.
>>
>> Mr. Reines, the attorney, who is with the firm of Weil Gotshal & Manges
>> and is not involved in the main part of the Myriad case, said he thought
>> the Patent Office opposed the new position but was overruled by other
>> agencies. A hint is that no lawyer from the Patent Office was listed on
>> the brief"
>>
>> ===
>>
>> The legal case of patentability of genes should provide some good
>> learning toward our making a case for the patentability of ontologies.
>>
>> By the way, we had better get our act together if we want to properly
>> inform the powers-to-be on whether or not ontologies should be patentable.
>>
>> ... (mea culpa//) I still owe everyone a recap and a summary of the next
>> steps after our recent OOR-IPR sessions
>> (http://ontolog.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?OpenOntologyRepository_IPR).
>> That's fairly high on my priority list!
>>
>>
>> Regards. =ppy
>> --
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
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