Well, perhaps to add more content here w.r.t. the Monsanto case, I mean, the court should have been able to determine if the wind just blew the pollen in to pollinate the plants. IANAL, perhaps an IP attorney who is knows what they are talking about can explain why that case worked out the way it does.
Anyway, it's pretty unfortunate how that one example worked out, but the point I failed to make, was that the engineers who invented that wonderful corn that is immune to disease and predation and grows happily almost anywhere in the world and brings great value to the future of the world are no more or less clever than someone who assembles for loops, encryption functions, and database calls into something just as valuable to the future of computing. In a way, those are even more letters and numbers and perhaps physical systems too, just represented in code, and therefore should be even more patentable than just 4 letters repeating in a sequence.
Perhaps it is another type of discrimination I am addressing. A discrimination against a new kind of intelligence. A discrimination against machine intelligence. The artificial brains and neural nets and perhaps years of training are somehow different than a solar panel that can follow the sun. I don't see a difference and I don't see any reason the law should make such a distinction. That's something that may come up in the future, but it's not really a problem now. Somewhere along the way though, We will probably start talking about giving rights to machines who have claimed their identities. We let corporations have all the rights of humans, why not individual sentient robots? But again I digress.
My argument is this: If we are going to do away with software patents, we should do away with patents all together. I don't know what that world will be like and if that is the solution to these kinds of patent problems, not just for computer science, but for all fields, then I say let's do it, but don't single out software patents and axe just those.
Once the patent to the DNA was granted, the suit against the farmer in the neighboring field was logically necessary. It's the way patents work: you either sue to protect your monopoly whenever you're aware it's being infringed or you lose it. Nations suffering from starvation have refused patent encumbered food, because it would have meant that their farmers, who would plant some of that grain in the same way they have for thousands of years, would no longer have access to European markets, and would be liable for patent infringement. http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/us-policy-on-aid-is...
While the outcome of the Monsanto case was beyond absurd, that wasn't what I was referring to wrt genome patents. If you invent a lifeform, then I think it's fine that you patent it.
What makes no sense to me is how the genomes of naturally occurring life forms can be patented. By the same rationale, Clyde Tombaugh could have patented Pluto, and Galileo would have patents to Jupiter's moons. It makes no sense whatsover.
In this case patent's are less harmfull than Copyright. With a patent your idea becomes public domain farily quickly with Copyright 100 years from now the same DNA would be protected.
