Bonum Certa Men Certa

Today We Conquer Algorithms, Tomorrow... Earthly Life!

Satellite of Extraterrestrial Civilization



Summary: Patent violation upon birth -- the new "original sin"? The MPEG cartel also patents genes

THE scope of patenting keeps expanding and lawyers are unable to resist this temptation to enrich themselves with more unnecessary monopolies, this time on genes. Here is a new article titled "Monopolists of the Genetic Code?" (also in the Financial Times with some related news elsewhere)



Last week, Craig Venter created a media frenzy – and a frenzy of bioethical hand-wringing – when he announced the creation of the first “synthetic cell.” In reality, his team of researchers had created the first synthetic genome, the operating system of the cell. They had, in effect, switched the operating system of a particular cell to a new operating system that they had synthesized and edited.

Though many of the headlines talked of Venter being God and having created life in the lab, that is not an accurate way to describe it. Venter started with a particular naturally occurring cell and effectively, de-compiled, analysed and then painstaking edited and reassembled that cell’s genome to create a version of the cell never found in nature. Researchers had already synthesized the genome of the polio virus, creating a genome that would actually “produce” a live virus that infected mice in the lab, but the size of that initiative was several orders of magnitude smaller. The significance of what Venter’s team did lay in the scale of the enterprise and the mastery of the code that it demonstrated. It is as if I took your computer, copied the operating system, figured out what each part of that system did, pruned, cut and edited its functions, and then reloaded a substantially edited system back into the computer – a version which actually proved capable of running it.


The life of a computer, just like the life of a human, mustn't become the property of one person or a group. That's just abuse and it should be reported as such. For those who don't know, the patent troll MPEG-LA also has a cartel going on around genes. Here is a press release from last month. Larry Horn is also a threat to people's lives now.




MPEG LA Launches Initiative to Make Gene Patents Available for Diagnostic Testing



Licensing Facility Balances Open Access with Innovation to Deliver Diagnosis and Treatment

DENVER, Apr 08, 2010 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- MPEG LA, LLC, world leader in alternative one-stop patent licenses, today announced a market-based initiative for a diagnostic genetics patent licensing facility that addresses the market's need for nonexclusive access to patents for diagnostic genetics tests leading to personalized medical solutions that save lives and reduce healthcare costs.

"Diagnostic genetics testing holds great promise as a driver of precision therapy, but patent thickets and restrictive licensing arrangements threaten their delivery," said MPEG LA President and CEO Larry Horn. "The recent case of Association for Molecular Pathology vs. USPTO, Myriad Genetics and University of Utah Research Foundation (US District Court for the Southern District of New York) suggests the need for a solution that balances social cost and open access with innovation incentive. Applying its leading mass market patent licensing expertise in service to the healthcare market, MPEG LA is prepared to deliver it. We welcome all owners of relevant patents to join those who have expressed their support for this effort."

By aggregating patent rights for existing and emerging tests that may lead to personalized treatment (e.g., hereditary hearing loss in infants, breast cancer, ovarian cancer, cardiovascular disease, Lynch syndrome) and licensing them nonexclusively for diagnostic use, MPEG LA's diagnostic genetics patent licensing facility, or "supermarket," will assist laboratories, testing companies and researchers in obtaining rights they need to design comprehensive diagnostic genetics tests that the market wants, thereby making these tests widely available through multiple channels at affordable prices.

In the current marketplace, many patent owners restrict access to their intellectual property in order to protect and promote their own tests, and others do not make their patents available at all because the costs of licensing them in isolation from related patents are prohibitive. By providing the public with wide access to tests that rely on the availability of these patent rights, MPEG LA's licensing supermarket will afford patent owners -- including those who currently restrict access or refrain from licensing -- a new and financially attractive, low risk opportunity to make diagnostic patent rights available to a wider market through broader, more inclusive tests. As such, the MPEG LA supermarket intersects cost effectiveness with effective treatment, alleviating the social costs of current gene patenting and licensing practices while preserving the investment incentives that enable developers to bring new genetic tests to market.

MPEG LA, LLC

MPEG LA is the world leader in alternative technology licenses, enabling users to acquire worldwide patent rights necessary for a technology standard or platform from multiple patent holders in a single transaction as an alternative to negotiating separate licenses. Wherever an independently administered one-stop patent license would provide a convenient marketplace alternative to assist users with implementation of their technology choices, the licensing model pioneered and employed by MPEG LA may provide a solution. Among MPEG LA's licenses is one for MPEG-2 digital video compression that has helped produce the most widely employed standard in consumer electronics history. The MPEG-2 Patent Portfolio License, which includes more than 870 MPEG-2 essential patents in 57 countries, has more than 1500 licensees accounting for most MPEG-2 products including set-top boxes, DVD players, digital television sets, personal computers and DVD Video discs in the current world market. MPEG LA is an independent licensing administrator; it is not related to any standards agency and is not an affiliate of any patent holder. For more information, please refer to http://www.mpegla.com.

SOURCE: MPEG LA, LLC

MPEG LA, LLC Tom O'Reilly, 303-200-1710 Fax: 301-986-8575 toreilly@mpegla.com

Recent Techrights' Posts

Purchasing Concert Tickets in 2025 in Manchester: The "Modern" Experience
I recently spent a couple of days here testing the "terrain" in order to better understand how large public venues, for concerts rather than sporting events like football, currently "work"
Lovers and Haters
Always beware hate preachers and demagogues (or how they frame issues or whose fault they distract from)
 
What 'Hulk Hogan of UEFI' Could Learn From Jimmy Kimmel About the 'Streisand Effect'
Lawyering up is risky and is usually doesn't work
Linux is Replacing Apple
Apple is money down the drain. Not only are the gadgets overpriced; they cost a lot to maintain and keep going over time
"We don't have that kind of relationship with Microsoft. The only public key that every UEFI firmware is guaranteed to have is Microsoft's, and only Microsoft owns the private key."
This is how to sabotage GNU/Linux distros that Microsoft does not control
Slopwatch: linuxconfig.org, linuxsecurity.com, and Google's Promotion of the Worst and Most Prolific Slopfarms
Over in Google News it has been quite chaotic this past day
Gemini Links 26/09/2025: Reading RSS Feeds, ROOPHLOCH 202
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, September 25, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, September 25, 2025
Links 25/09/2025: More European Airports Shut Down Due to What Seems Like Russian Drones
Links for the day
Gemini Links 25/09/2025: Amiga Revived and Hackers (UTF-8)
Links for the day
Links 25/09/2025: French Unions Want Another Strike, Super Typhoon Ragasa Kills Many
Links for the day
Microsoft 'Secure Boot' and Shim as Barrier or Obstacle to New GNU/Linux Users Trying to Escape Microsoft
Just as intended all along
Focusing on What People Have in Common Instead of Killing and Cancelling One Another
Men and women of both "wings" stand to gain a lot by working together on common interests
'Cancel Culture' Isn't About Enforcing Ethics (and It's Done by People on the Right, Not "The Leftists")
Smarter folks would leave social control media
Russia's Attack on Europe (and NATO) Will Worsen Censorship and Corruption in Europe
Can we still debate issues that predate the invasion of Crimea?
Lawyers Should Permanently Lose Their Licence (and Worse) for Using Chatbots in Legal Work
They not only waste people's money and time. They pollute the literature with falsehoods. They commit perjury. [...] Brett Wilson LLP sent the Judge nearly 1,000 pages of material (mostly mine, copied without proper permission) shortly before a short Hearing, which lasted less than an hour
GAFAM and MATA (Mythical, Metaphor) as Explained by analognowhere.com
They're instruments of suppression that sponsor the oppressor
We've Already Mentioned Who Nowadays Funds Garrett's SLAPP Against Us (Not Garrett), Let's Examine Who Sponsored His Litigation Partner (Other Than Microsoft Salaries There's a Buddy of Bill Gates)
it's alleged that the Serial Strangler from Microsoft got money from him
Florian Müller: Using Software Patents to Attack Software Developers, Agitate Against Patent Reform
He also promotes attacks on the German Constitution and laws
Reliance on Typepad Seems to Have Doomed the Voice of Software Patents and Patent Maximalists in PatentDocs
Follow the money
UEFI 'Secure Boot' is Potential Mayhem to the Environment (Older and Leaner Distros Stop Working)
creating new problems, disguised as "solutions" to problems that do not exist
Sometimes 'Cancel Culture' Backfires Badly
There's no such thing as "too much" coverage
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, September 24, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, September 24, 2025
Links 25/09/2025: Jimmy Kimmel Returns to Air (With Limitations) and London Stansted Airport Latest to Have Incident (Fire)
Links for the day
Slopwatch: Fake Articles, SPAM With Slop, and Google News Directs People to Read Slopfarms
why does Google News insist on still linking to prolific slopfarms?
Gemini Links 25/09/2025: New Game for Gemini Protocol, Eleven, and Network Solutions Woes
Links for the day
Punching People Doesn't Work
It makes nobody any safer
Look Ma, No "Cloud"
So far this year we've had an almost perfect uptime
Links 24/09/2025: Autism Blame-Shifting and Typhoon Ragasa Enters China
Links for the day
Buying From Oneself is Not Business Success
This isn't at all a joking matter even if you already laugh at the whole thing because your pension, savings etc. are tied to this scam at some level
This is How Microsoft's XBox and Entire Consoles (If Not Gaming) Ventures Will Ultimately Die
Ensure you can blame "Tariffs" (politics)? If not "hey hi", the fashionable go-to excuse when businesses fail?
What They Really Hate David Heinemeier Hansson (DHH) for
Nothing to do with code
Smart People Won't Buy 'Smart' Cars
Imagine trying to sell someone a house (proper home) while insisting that it'll need to be demolished 5 or 10 years later, then rebuilt again from scratch on the same vacant lot
The Relationship Between IBM Red Hat and Microsoft, Visualised
This metaphor goes a long way (projects, collaborations, and outsourcing
The Complaint About Brett Wilson LLP - Part III - Spying on Reporters' Families, Chaining Cases for Microsoft Employees Who Demand Censorship of Facts (Even Politely Expressed)
the time seems right to wrap up this introductory series
The Complaint About Brett Wilson LLP - Part II - UK SLAPPs for Americans, SLAPPs for Profit
Brett Wilson LLP has a track record of this kind
Cloudflare Gives Us All Another Reason to Boycott Cloudflare
If Cloudflare wants to use its vast surveillance network (which is what it does as a CDN) to foist paywalls and maybe something worse (like DRM on top), then Cloudflare should be more widely rejected as a company
Links 24/09/2025: "NASA Moving Out of Entire Buildings as It's Gutted" and Purge of Online Critics (Opposing Fascism Becomes Unlawful)
Links for the day
Science is Under Attack
Oligarchy prefers a dumbed-down population
Someone Expiring Certificates on the Day of the 9/11 Attacks is Not Someone I Would Want Controlling My PC (or Deciding What's Authorised for Booting)
"social justice warriors"
The Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) Has Reportedly Failed People With Wrong Advice
At the moment the SRA has a PR blunder
The Man Suing Brett Wilson LLP and Gervase de Wilde (5RB)
Now he's probably using the (almost) 200,000 pounds he's supposed to receive to sue Brett Wilson LLP and former colleagues/partners
More Microsoft-Red Hat Cross-Pollination as the Company Loses a Managing Director
some people move from Microsoft to Red Hat and some do the opposite
Slopwatch: A World Wide Web That's Rotting for Companies That Won't Even Exist in a Few Years
some of the junk Google News is promoting
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, September 23, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, September 23, 2025
Links 24/09/2025: Qt Creator 18 Beta, Microsoft Cannot Bail Out "ChatGPT" Anymore, China and US Intensify Censorship
Links for the day