Patent law

Email this page to a friend

Want news about Patent law and more e-mailed to you? Click here for free email alerts

Review: The Future of Food, a must-see documentary that exposes the biotech threat to life on our planet Mike Adams, the Health Ranger See article keywords and concepts

In time, we may even be able to overthrow modern patent law and ultimately ban the patenting of seeds, genes and living entities. In time, I hope to see the ending of patent law on all medicines, too. Patents on genes, seeds, foods and medicines should have never been allowed. These things belong to the people (actually, they belong to no one except nature). They certainly do not belong to any corporation. Personally, I refuse to recognize these invalid patent laws which are artificially constructed by the U.S. patent office.

The simple act of reproducing by having children is now a violation of U.S. patent law. Technically, the corporations that "own" these human genes could sue the parents of all newborns, demanding royalty payments for the use of their intellectual property. Want to know more shocking facts about intellectual property and the future of food, agriculture and human civilization? See The Future of Food for yourself. And while you're at it, be sure to visit the Center for Food safety (www.centerforfoodsafety.

Generation Rx: How Prescription Drugs are Altering American Lives, Minds, and Bodies Greg Critser See book keywords and concepts

As such, he was committed to traditional patent law, and barely an official phrase passed his lips without Mossinghoff uttering something about "classic, hornbook patent law," referring to the nineteenth-century case books that informed his views. He was also a textbook Reaganite, inclined to look unfavorably at regulatory or legislative limits on patent life. He had helped the president establish and populate a new, conservative patent court. Just who "requested" that he get involved and testify before Congress on the pro-brand name side is unclear, and there were recriminations all around.

How Everyday Products Make People Sick: Toxins at Home and in the Workplace Paul D. Blanc, M.D. See book keywords and concepts

It was exactly this kind of rubber vulcanization micromanufacturing that could find a particularly receptive niche in and around Paris, well beyond the troubling particulars of British patent law. The technology of the process dictated its small-scale nature, allowing cold vulcanization and other carbon disulfide treatments of rubber to be carried out in poorly maintained workplaces that were often little more than sheds and sometimes even less.

Corporate Greed, Intellectual Property Laws and the Destruction of Human Civilization Mike Adams, the Health Ranger See article keywords and concepts

When you have children you're violating patent law? What are you talking about?" Their next question would likely be, "Have you gone mad?" The answer is yes, we have gone mad. We have let this thing go so far out of control, and we have distorted nature to such an extent that we are creating our own destruction at every level -- physical, nutritional, emotional and definitely spiritual -- and we're doing it all in the name of corporate profits. Corporations need to keep money flowing into politicians' pockets, which in turn keeps the dollars flowing into the corporate coffers.

As bizarre as it sounds, it's absolutely true: having children is a violation of patent law. This has come about because those at the U.S. Patent Office seem to have lost their collective minds. They have allowed companies and individuals to gain ownership of intellectual property that should never have been granted to a private organization or individual. Some things belong to nature -- like the gene sequence of a human being. Man didn't create it. There's no Einstein who created the human gene sequence, put together some DNA and made human beings.

The health care reform legislation that Congress should pass, but won't Mike Adams, the Health Ranger See article keywords and concepts

Why is 20 percent of the human genome now "owned" by corporations, making reproduction (as in having children) a violation of patent law? I say we take the profits out of medicine and end the intellectual property monopolies that have enabled disease mongering and the hyping of patented chemicals over every other form of medicine. Genes, seeds and medicines should not be patentable. They should belong to everyone. And if you're wondering where all the medicine would come from if patents were abolished, the answer is that all the medicine we need already exists in nature.

Review: The Future of Food, a must-see documentary that exposes the biotech threat to life on our planet Mike Adams, the Health Ranger See article keywords and concepts

There is no such thing as corporate ownership over a seed, there is only the illusion of such ownership. patent law is a social and legal construct, and it can be demolished just as easily as it was fabricated. In time, if enough consumers join in these efforts to save themselves from corporate tyranny, we can take back ownership and control over our food, our genes and our lives. It will not be an easy task, and it will require a lot of information and grassroots advocacy.

The Einstein Factor: A Proven New Method for Increasing Your Intelligence Win Wenger, Ph.D. and Richard Poe See book keywords and concepts

In the presence of the professors, one of Scheeles colleagues PhotoRead a volume of U.S. patent law. "Afterwards," writes Scheele, "he scored 75 percent comprehension. In addition, he drew approximations of six patent illustrations and correctly identified their numeric sequence." An Evolutionary Leap PhotoReading appears to be a natural step forward in the evolution of human reading skills. In ancient and medieval times, people commonly read out loud. Most found it difficult to read without at least moving their lips. Today, almost every literate person can read silently.

Plants of the four winds - The magic and medicinal flora of Peru Rainer W. Bussmann and Douglas Sharon See book keywords and concepts

Taking advantage of the "novelty" criterion in international patent law, with regard to the documentation of Ayurvedic and other traditional medicine, millennial Sanskrittexts as well as modern publications are included in a traditional knowledge database, which is subsequently provided to patent agencies. The expectation is that, by placing the knowledge about long-term cultural precedents for traditional uses in the public domain, this research will prove that contemporary patent applications derived from local medicinal knowledge lack originality, i.e.

Worldchanging: A User's Guide for the 21st Century Alex Steffen See book keywords and concepts

Works by domestic authors and inventors were afforded nominal—but critical—protection under a copyright and patent law that explicitly set out to cultivate a post-colonial America in soil enriched by the composted works of foreign powers. No developing nation today enjoys this privilege. A combination of international copyright, patent, and trademark laws have robbed developing nations of the autonomy that would allow them to embark on a program of self-improvement comparable to that of America's in its first century as a nation.

Don't Go Shopping for Hair-Care Products Without Me Paula Begoun See book keywords and concepts

And speaking of patented secrets, this is an oxymoron. U.S. patent law is very clear: In order for an ingredient or group of ingredients to be patented, the exact components and precise formulation details must be disclosed in full. It doesn't take much for a hair-care company to figure out an alternative to a patented formula; and if that's not feasible, they can buy the licensed right to use the formula. Realistically, if a product could repair hair, you should only have to use it a few times and then your hair would be repaired. That isn't what happens.

Big Pharma: Exposing the Global Healthcare Agenda Jacky Law See book keywords and concepts

If researchers, increasingly motivated by financial gain and hamstrung by sponsorship deals, are forced to trade their discoveries with the rest of the community only under the protection of patent law or commercial secrecy, people will look on the public deal with pharma - in particular, its unimpressive record in finding new drugs - rather differently. Could pharma's massive influence over healthcare actually be thwarting the scientific community's ability of make sense of the new science by directing effort according to its own rather narrow agenda?

Generation Rx: How Prescription Drugs are Altering American Lives, Minds, and Bodies Greg Critser See book keywords and concepts

THE MAN IN THE MIDDLE: HOW PHARMA REINVENTED PAT I ENTS AND THE FDA One of the things that Roche's Irv Lerner and Parke-Davis's Joe Williams liked about Gerry Mossinghoff — besides the former patent commissioner's simpatico view of patent law and his many useful governmental connections — was his vision of federal regulatory agencies. "About that, he was fresh," recalls Williams. Unlike Lew Engman, who saw in the regulatory agencies some kind of compact between the public and its leaders, Gerry Mossinghoff discerned unfulfilled commercial promise. Period.

Plants of the four winds - The magic and medicinal flora of Peru Rainer W. Bussmann and Douglas Sharon See book keywords and concepts

Fortunately, in 2002, with the support of the International Phyto-Genetic Resource Institute (Rome, Italy), Peru promulgated Law 27811 for the protection of the collective knowledge of indigenous peoples related to biological resources. Article 17 of the law establishes a National Public Register to include collective knowledge that is in the public domain.

Food, Inc. Mendel to Monsanto - The Promises and Perils of the Biotech Harvest Peter Pringle See book keywords and concepts

Others would say Proctor was only doing what the patent law allowed. Either way, Proctor and his yellow beans became very famous in the food world. At the beginning of the 1990s, Proctor bought a bag of dry beans in a market in the northwest Mexican border state of Sonora. He took them home and picked out the yellow-colored beans, planted them, and allowed them to self-pollinate. With each successive generation, he says, he selected only the seeds that were yellow, until he had a "uniform and stable population"—just as Mendel had selected peas in his monastery garden.

U.S. patent law recognizes "prior art" in foreign countries as one factor that disqualifies a patent claim; India presented an ancient Sanskrit text as proof of prior art. Three years after the turmeric patent was issued, it was revoked. Another U.S. company—this time a big multinational, W. R. Grace—had patented the antifungal agents in the seeds and the bark of the neem tree, which grows all over India. For centuries Indians have been using the bark of the neem tree, whose name means "free tree," to kill insects and pests, but also as a disinfectant.

The Truth About the Drug Companies: How They Deceive Us and What to Do About It Marcia Angell, M.D. See book keywords and concepts

Of course, if patent law were strictly enforced, so that patents were granted only for discoveries or inventions that are truly useful, novel, and non-obvious, there wouldn't be so many secondary patents. There is no reason for a thirty-month stay on generic companies entering the market just because brand-name companies sue them. Even if a brand-name company genuinely believes that a relevant patent would be violated, it could sue the generic company without an automatic extension of exclusive marketing rights.

I don't propose to, nor can I, make you experts in patent law, but a quick review will help to understand how drug companies abuse it. Patents were provided for in Article I, section 8, of the U.S. Constitution, which reads, "Congress shall have power ... to promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries." You can see that the original idea was to stimulate useful discoveries and inventions, as well as to reward inventors.

Others, like changing patent law or achieving uniform pricing have all sorts of global ramifications and would face almost insurmountable obstacles. But there is value in trying to define the ideal system, so that we can move toward it in the best way possible—unevenly and incompletely, if necessary—but at least with an understanding of where we want to go. My proposals address seven broad problems that have been discussed in this book. They are listed here with references to the chapters in which they were discussed, in case you want to refresh your memory.

I am aware that such a change would be difficult to achieve, given the current move to harmonize patent law internationally. But as I said earlier, I am sketching an ideal system, and this change would certainly be an improvement. The law granting drug companies an extra six months of exclusive marketing rights for testing drugs in children should be repealed. That law is virtual bribery, and it doesn't even accomplish its stated purpose. Drug companies take advantage of the law to test blockbuster drugs in children whether the drugs are meant for this age-group or not.

The Encyclopedia of Popular Herbs Robert S. McCaleb, Evelyn Leigh, and Krista Morien See book keywords and concepts

The problem with herbal medicines is that herbs are not patentable, so no one can gain the exclusive right to sell an herb. patent law is designed to protect inventors, but it also prevents people from claiming they invented common things that were already known. Common substances such as ice— or ginseng—have been known for too long to be patentable. So if a company chose to spend $350 million to prove that ginseng is safe and effective, anyone could sell it as a safe and effective drug. patent law prevents them from "owning" ginseng, and rightly so. No one owns folk medicines.

The Truth About the Drug Companies: How They Deceive Us and What to Do About It Marcia Angell, M.D. See book keywords and concepts

To start with, U.S. patent law should be enforced in its original form. Courts have progressively weakened the requirement that new discoveries or inventions be useful, novel, and non-obvious. There is no possible justification, for instance, for a new patent on Prozac to treat premenstrual tension. Examiners in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office should not receive bonuses based on how many patent applications they handle. Since it is easier to grant a patent than to deny it, the current payment practice encourages quick approval, whatever the merits.

Health Care Meltdown: Confronting The Myths and Fixing Our Failing System Bob LeBow, M.D., M.P.H. See book keywords and concepts

Some of the other questionable, and often illegal, ploys used by the pharmaceutical industry include: • Manipulating patent law to keep cheaper generic products off the market (as with Taxol),28 or paying off smaller pharmaceutical companies not to manufacture cheaper generic versions of their drugs, as has happened with BuSpar and Hytrin.29 • Giving kickbacks to physicians who overcharge Medicare for drugs. TAP Pharmaceuticals paid a record $875 million fine for abuses involving their prostate cancer drug Lupron. • Price-fixing.

The Encyclopedia of Popular Herbs Robert S. McCaleb, Evelyn Leigh, and Krista Morien See book keywords and concepts

So if a company chose to spend $350 million to prove that ginseng is safe and effective, anyone could sell it as a safe and effective drug. patent law prevents them from "owning" ginseng, and rightly so. No one owns folk medicines. They belong to everyone. Still, the effect of regulation and economics on herbal medicine and plant-based pharmaceuticals has been chilling. Since 1962, not a single new complex plant drug has been approved in the United States. Since herbs could not be sold and promoted as medicines, they were regulated as foods, or sometimes as food chemicals (additives).

FAIR USE NOTICE: The research quoted here is provided under the protection of Fair Use provisions and published by the 501(c)3 non-profit Consumer Wellness Center for the purposes of public comment and education. Authors / publishers may submit books for consideration of inclusion here.

TERMS OF USE: Read full terms of use. Citations of text from NaturalPedia must include: 1) Full credit to the original author and book title. 2) Secondary credit to the Natural News Naturalpedia as a research resource and a link to www.NaturalNews.com/np/index.html

This unique compilation of research is copyright (c) 2008 by the non-profit Consumer Wellness Center.

ABOUT THE CREATOR OF NATURALPEDIA: Mike Adams, the creator of this NaturalNews Naturalpedia, is the editor of NaturalNews.com, the internet's top natural health news site, creator of the Honest Food Guide (www.HonestFoodGuide.org), a free downloadable consumer food guide based on natural health principles, author of Grocery Warning, The 7 Laws of Nutrition, Natural Health Solutions, and many other books available at www.TruthPublishing.com, creator of the earth-friendly EcoLEDs company (www.EcoLEDs.com) that manufactures energy-efficient LED lighting products, founder of Arial Software (www.ArialSoftware.com), a permission e-mail technology company, creator of the CounterThink Cartoon series (www.NaturalNews.com/index-cartoons.html) and author of over 1,500 articles, interviews, special reports and reference guides available at www.NaturalNews.com. Adams' personal philosophy and health statistics are available at www.HealthRanger.org.