Re: [ccp4bb]: License required for deposited structures!

[Gerard DVD Kleywegt <gerard@xray.bmc.uu.se>]

***  For details on how to be removed from this list visit the  ***
***          CCP4 home page http://www.ccp4.ac.uk         ***

bonjour,

> > this is not true either - information in patents may be used for
> > non-commercial purposes (such as academic research)
> 
>    No. Patents _also_ apply to non-commercial projects. However in _practice_, 
> seldom will a company file a lawsuit against a non-commercial project because 
> it does not make sense financially speaking. But strictly, if a 
> non-commercial project (say, a freely available software) uses a patent and 
> reduces the financial earnings of the patent holder, then there can be 
> prosecution (and the project can be shut down).

you're confusing research and products. you can use information contained in
patents for research purposes. obviously you cannot start producing a patented
drug in your lab or kitchen and handing it out for free. also, if your
research that uses patented information results in a new marketable product or
invention, you will need to negotiate some licensing arrangement with the
patent holder

> > patents have a good side too in that information that would otherwise be
> > buried in a company is being published.
> 
>    indeed. Nobody would want drug discoveries to remain hidden.

but it's not just the product that is described in a patent, but also whatever
is needed to produce it (e.g., organic synthesis route), and it is usually the
method that is of interest for academic research

> > also keep in mind that many things
> > cannot be patented (in sweden: theories, discoveries, computer programs,
> > teaching methods, objets d'art, disease treatments, etc. in the us, disease
> > treatments and computer programs can be patentable, though). other things
> > that are good to know: a patent can only be obtained for a functioning
> > technical solution to a problem, which is both novel and non-obvious, and
> > only the inventor can apply for a patent.
> 
>    Very idealistic ! You _can_ gain a patent very trivial ideas, unfortunately 
> (and it'd cost you 10000-100000 €/$ to prove it _is_ trivial). And as for the 

even if you succeed - why would you do it ? it costs a lot of money to get a
patent and you cannot hope to regain those costs (plus any legal expenses to
fight possible infringements)

--gerard

******************************************************************
                        Gerard J.  Kleywegt
    [Research Fellow of the Royal  Swedish Academy of Sciences]
Dept. of Cell & Molecular Biology  University of Uppsala
                Biomedical Centre  Box 596
                SE-751 24 Uppsala  SWEDEN

    http://xray.bmc.uu.se/gerard/  mailto:gerard@xray.bmc.uu.se
******************************************************************
   The opinions in this message are fictional.  Any similarity
   to actual opinions, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
******************************************************************