Re: [ccp4bb]: What has been will be again, what has been done willbe done again; there is nothing new under the sun.

[Harry Powell <harry@mrc-lmb.cam.ac.uk>]

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Hi

I'm reasonably sure that patent law in most countries takes the concept of
"prior art" into account, i.e. if something can be shown to have been done
previously, or if it is an obvious extension or development, then the
patent should not be granted.

However, patent examiners working in patent offices are often (usually?)
not experts in the field of a particular patent application, and thus may
recommend approval erroneously (many things are only obvious in
hindsight...). Once a patent is granted, it can be prohibitively expensive
to challenge  - you can't just point out the error to the patent office...

This was discussed recently by the IUCr Commission on Crystallographic
Computing; their recent newsletter contained an article by Vincent
Favre-Nicolin on the subject;

http://www.iucr.org/iucr-top/comm/ccom/newsletters/2003jan/html/index.html#vince
nt

> Recently, the wheel has been patented (in Australia). This was a protest
> against a new patent law there... Don't take these things too
seriously....
>
> Flip
>
>
http://www.ccp14.ac.uk/maths/software-patents/crystallography_patents.html
>
> Titles include:
>
> Method for determining parameters of a unit cell of a crystal structure
> using diffraction
> Computer-aided chemical illustration system
> Incremental macromolecule construction methods
> High-resolution crystallographic modelling of a macromolecule
> Process for pan-genomic determination of macromolecular atomic structures
>
> and many, many more. Although I'm sure many of these are
> merely pre-emptive patent applications.
>
> m

Harry
-- 
Dr Harry Powell, MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, MRC Centre, Hills
Road, Cambridge, CB2 2QH