Nobel chemistry work patented by Yale and others
It’s a familiar story, told in elementary school science lessons. In 1867, Alfred Nobel patented Dynamite–a ground-breaking technology if there ever was one–which exploded into uses in rock quarries, road projects and the on the battlefield. The wealth yielded by the sale of dynamite allowed the famous Swede to finance the Prize, which today was awarded for the beautiful research that led to 3-D structural models of the ribosome.
It could be argued that the word “fundamental” could be applied to any number of molecular machines that are essential to the livelihood of practically every cell in our bodies. But ribosomes are in the very middle of the dogmatic process of turning genes to proteins, and they are extremely well-conserved throughout evolution. And, as I’ve written before, these revealing biological discoveries will be protected by patents for years.
The New York Times news update described ribosomes this way:
If the sequence of lettered nucleic acids in the DNA form the blueprint for life, ribosomes are the factory floor.
It was a kind of reverse-engineering of this “factory floor” that constitutes the Nobel-winning work. The laureates first had to crystallize various parts of ribosomes, an extremely complicated task given the size and complexity of these molecular complexes. These crystals were analyzed with a very sensitive X-ray device, yielding information that, when reconstructed by a computer, can be modeled into a three-dimensional diagram of the molecular structures.
Other than being extremely beautiful, these structures are vital for determining how ribosomes interact physically with other molecules. These other molecules include ones that ribosomes would normally commingle with in the cells, like RNA. More usefully, perhaps, this information can be used to design small, artificial molecules–drugs–that could bind to a part of the ribosome to alter its function in some way, or perhaps to disrupt it completely.
Tetracycline, designed and manufactured by bacteria. (Wikimedia)
A particular bacteria, Streptomyces, has been doing this kind of “drug-design” work for a very, very long time. Streptomyces evolved various small molecules that bind to ribosomes and disrupt their function. These natural, bacterial molecules–tetracycline, neomycin and others–are now found in pills and over-the counter ointments. As antibiotics, they kill other cells by attaching to and rendering their ribosomes useless.
Using the Nobel-winning structures to design the types of molecules that these bacteria have long been producing is a practice now protected by a number of patents. Some of these patents, held by Yale in the name of the prize-winner Thomas Steitz and others, cover not only the process for determining the structure of the molecules, but also the computation used to design new antibiotics. The Yale patents are currently licensed to Rib-X pharmaceuticals, a Yale-spinoff biotech company based in the New Haven area.
As always, there is an argument that intellectual property must be fully patent-protected before major investments can be made towards developing commercial products. The patent holders and licensees surely believe that these products will be life-saving, and profitable, and I hate to rain on the Nobel Prize parade. But should research so fundamental to life, such as the ribosome structure, be locked up for commercial gain–like Dynamite? Should a private institution, such as Yale, have the only say over how ribosomes may be developed into new biomedical technologies?
Also, who funded the research that lead to these patents? If it was the NSF or NIH, then should the american public be able to freely access the results of this investment?
I’m answering this as an academic scientist at a University; I have several patent applications of my own, but haven’t made any real money off of these discoveries. Why would anyone want to patent scientific discoveries? Isn’t this just greed on the part of the inventors, especially because these discoveries are often funded with federal tax dollars and it seems contrary to the best interests of medical research.
I argue that patents are actually beneficial for commercialization of key discoveries; it is in the best interests of the inventors to always patent scientific discoveries. While it is clear that patent trolls can have a chilling effect on academic research under certain circumstances, patents are typically a very useful way of driving academic discoveries into commercialization. Patents provide financial incentives for companies to acquire key scientific discoveries that can be developed into products; without this protection, most companies are simply unwilling to take laboratory discoveries and try to turn these into products used in the clinic. Neither Universities nor individual scientists have either the ability or the funds needed to commercialize products to any great scale so that they can, for instance, be used in the healthcare industry; this requires an entirely different infrastructure that the University environment is set up to handle.
It’s all well and good to argue that “research so fundamental to life…[should not] be locked up for commercial gain” but it is unclear if this will actually have a chilling effect on research or commercialization. Universities do not typically go after scientists for academic studies, and although patents can be exclusive to a single company, universities are able license a patent to several parties. Finally, it is difficult to write a patent application to cover an entire academic universe; typically these discoveries are restricted to a specific use or domain. Given advances in the field, it’s hard to see how this is a bad thing.
“I argue that patents are actually beneficial for commercialization of key discoveries; it is in the best interests of the inventors to always patent scientific discoveries. While it is clear that patent trolls can have a chilling effect on academic research under certain circumstances, patents are typically a very useful way of driving academic discoveries into commercialization.”
You identify yourself as a scientist at a University, and you certainly have defined a testable theory with your above statement.
If patents do actually drive discoveries into commercialization, then we should be able to see more new drugs produced by more companies due to patents. But by definition we do not. Some references:
http://media.caltech.edu/press_releases/13232
http://www.genomeweb.com/biotechtransferweek/patent-simulation-study-suggests-current-patent-systems-stifle-not-promote-innov
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/280/5364/698
While the prior anonymous poster argues eloquently that patents are a necessary prerequisite to commercial exploitation…
“…patents are actually beneficial for commercialization of key discoveries; it is in the best interests of the inventors to always patent scientific discoveries…”
methinks that his protest is prejudiced by his self-interests. The reality is that this research IS funded largely, if not entirely, by ‘the taxpayer’. And it is not incumbent upon ‘the taxpayer’ to see that the research is exploited. The nature of Capitalism will insure that companies that can see a way to exploit knowledge for profit will do so. The rewards, if any, from that exploitation should flow back to the taxpayers, not to the scientists nor the institution suckling at the public teat. They have already earned their reward. They need not continue to profit from it for seventy-five years after they are cold and buried underground.
“I argue that patents are actually beneficial for commercialization of key discoveries; it is in the best interests of the inventors to always patent scientific discoveries.”
Did you read the article? Whether patents are beneficial for commercialization is not the issue. The argument is that fundamental research like this shouldn’t be locked up for commercial gain.
My experience at both big and small companies is that the patents make a lot of money for the lawyers. Very few patents actually lead to profits, and patents that do not produce profits can still produce a “negative force field” around an area of research. This hurts progress. Back in the day, university scientists were discouraged to get involved in commercialization, this kept the community sharing ideas and materials. Now everything is wrapped in red tape, material transfer agreements and legalese. This needs to be eliminated. We made more progress when scientists were free to interact without contracts and could make an honest wage without being distracted with starting up yet another biotech company.
Paul, I don’t think we can properly test the question with those references. Those studies you cite are not conclusive by any means; they are suggestive that patents stifle innovation. It is hard to test these sorts of ideas in a real-world marketplace as I think much depends upon the existing infrastructure. There are examples in certain arenas where lack of patents have driven substantial innovation, such as open source, but there are many counter-examples where lack of proper intellectual protection has been detrimental. As a counter example, there are studies that suggest that licensing of IP is either beneficial or has no effect on innovation, such as a recent report by the National Academies Press, ” Reaping the Benefits of Genomic and Proteomic Research: Intellectual Propery Rights, Innovation, and Public Health.”
Relax,
Patents expire.
One poster mentioned profits flowing 75 years after the death of the inventor. I’d suggest this poster should become better acquainted with patent law; the protection is 20 years after the patent grant.
In reality the period of commercial protection is usually much less because of the years of development and oft long periods of time in whatever regulatory process is required in the field of interest. I personally have had patents expire before the commercialization of the invention.
As far as patents on ideas funded with public money, I agree that there should be a statutory bar if the preponderance of the funds used are from public sources.
In the question of whether patents are beneficial or a hindrance to innovation, I am very skeptical that a case can be made for hindrance on a society wide basis. The very Industrial Revolution sprung into full flower immediately after patent laws were enacted in England, and no developed nation since has seen fit to test the hypothesis that patents are a hindrance to innovation. Surely there is a reason that we havee seen nobody trying a go without patents.
This is not saying that the patent system as practiced in the US is perfect. Far from it. There are many problems with it. Business process patents, software patents and trivial inventions do not deserve patent protection. Litigation is far too costly, and so on. But the fundamental principle of encouraging invention through limited monopoly has been successful for hundreds of years and should be cast aside only with great trepidation.
Patent the applications (like new antibiotics). Keep the publicly funded basic science freely available to other creative thinkers that can develop other applications. Why allow limitations to the productivity of this knowledge?
The taxpayers will reap the rewards of more new medicines available to treat sickness, for example. Innovators will not be deterred from applying the science to avoid painful sacrifices of potential future profits.
Except that, for example, Patent 6,638,908 from the linked article is NOT about patenting ribosomes. It’s about patenting a method and system with which one can acquire high quality protein crystals. And Patent 6,631,329 is about using such structures to guide antibiotic design. As biological patents go, these are fairly benign. They are not patenting the structure of the ribosome; the patents are for some methods used to acquire such structures (there are several other methods, which are very distinct from the method Steitz et. al. used and would not be covered). There is a very strong argument against ‘method’ patents, but at least of those listed, Patent 6,638,908 is not one to use as a prime example of their evil.
As the poster who made the seventy-five year observation allow me to apologize. I was thinking of trademarks. But I have faith in Congress. I’m sure the expiration will be extended just as soon as Disney or a corporation of equal stature feels that it is in their best interests to have it be so.
Wrong again, you got confused with patents, trademarks and copyright. What you are referring to it’s copyrights, that’s what last almost a century after the author dies and this cover things like books and music, patents expire after 20 years and apply (or should apply) to machinery or the transformation of substances, and trademarks are mean to be a symbol that identifies the producer of a product and it doesn’t expire as long as it renewed.
Hanspeter: as any patent lawyer will tell you, what matters in a patent are the claims, and if you check out the claims for #6,638,908 you’ll see that actually it’s not about patenting ‘a method and system with which one can acquire high quality protein crystals’, it’s about patenting the crystals themselves (every single claim says “A or the crystal …”). #7,504,486 is the one I think you are referring to: it is much narrower than #6,638,908, as the claims in it only cover their crystallization method. AFAICS #6,638,908 has got every type and size of crystal that you are likely to want to use covered, including the 60S and 50S subunits, with ribosomes from all prokaryotes, eukaryotes & archaebacteria (i.e. everything!), with a sole exception for twinned crystals – you are welcome to work on those if you want! So #6,638,908 indeed doesn’t patent the structure (e.g. it doesn’t stop you from doing modelling using their structures), but AFAICS it does stop you using any crystals of any kind of ribosome that are remotely useful for further research. I’m not clear what ‘other methods’ you are referring to: do you mean non-crystallographic methods, as I think they would have to be if you are prevented from using crystals?
I’m curious as to how scientific minds who do this research can be so blindsided by greed. Science is about benefiting the community not your own pockets, sure money has to fund these discoveries but putting patents on mother nature and the very things that future research could be used to help save lives just so someone can have a few extra dollars is disgusting. Science should be about working together for a greater tomorrow not a larger wallet.
This is a disgrace.
It is unfortunate that folks feel the need to comment, while knowing nothing about how drugs are actually discovered and tested… and more importantly, about what it takes to even TRY to get resources to take an idea for a drug and TRY to make one — an effort that even with a great deal of resources often fails.
If anything is a “disgrace” it is the combination of arrogance and ignorance in many of these comments.
Some clarifications:
1) I am unaware (and I study this) of ANY lawsuit brought against a university for infringing a patent in the course of doing basic research. (OK there is one, in which a disgruntled professor sued a university he had left because he had created a HUGE machine that was very useful and that he used to earn piles of research money. When he left on bad terms and went to another university, the first one refused to let him take the machine with him. Turned out he somehow legitimately owned a patent on that machine and sued the university, and won. See Duke v. Madey. This situation is a far far cry from what some posters above think is happening — this myth that university researchers are cowering in their offices while lawyers threaten them with lawsuits.) University researchers doing research are willfully, blissfully ignorant of patents that might effect their work. And so far no company wants the horrible PR that would result from changing that.
2) If government money is used to make an invention at a university, the university MUST consider patenting and commercializing the invention, and if it does not, it must give the government the option to do so. This is the Bayh-Dole Act, an economic development law passed in 1980 to try to boost American competitiveness in the global marketplace. So the poster who made the statement that if there is government funding, the invention should be somehow “freely available”, is simply ignorant.
3) Universities exist to generate and propagate knowledge. They do that by teaching, doing research, writing books and articles, and for land grant universities, county extension offices. But they also do it by seeking to have inventions made in their labs, developed into products. New medical devices, drugs, and diagnostic tests based on university research are good things that serve the public good.
America is a capitalist country, for anyone who forgot that. This means two things:
a) these new products — like every other product — are made available to the public via the marketplace. Yes, you have to buy them. Is there other stuff in America that you get for free? Think, people! (note, you have to buy the other ways to access university research — you have to buy books and journals in which the research is made public, and a university education is not free either!)
b) Medical products in particular are very expensive and risky to develop. For a new drug, $200million (that is every step goes perfect; the average, counting failures, is $850 million!) over about 15 years. That is from Day 1 until you start actually selling a product. The government of America does NOT invest money in drug development (with some small small exceptions). Nope, this money comes from the private sector. Now no sane human being is going to make that kind of investment unless there is a chance to make a ton of money at the end. So when they examine the investment opportunity, what do they look for? You got it — whether there is (or is potential for) broad patent protection available around the idea for the drug. No patent protection, no investment…NO DRUG.
c) Once the drug is brought to market, the public can benefit from it. Now initially, there is a limited time during which the people who have taken risk – who have paid for all the development, can get their money back and more. (again, this is capitalism, and the investors made the investment EXACTLY for that purpose.). So new drugs are expensive. For a while. Then the patent expires and the drug becomes generic. And then the public can continue to benefit, just more cheaply now.
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OK I wrote too much.
But please people, stop reacting to stuff before you understand what is going on!! Ask questions!! THINK!
The combination of ignorance and passion is the most dangerous thing in the world.