Supreme Court to Rule on Patent for Your Thoughts ...

[bridgit]

'The US supreme court is due to hear arguments in a case today that could overturn thousands of controversial patents, after a lower court ruled that doctors could infringe a drug company's ownership rights "merely by thinking" about the relationship between two chemicals in the human body.

The case concerns a patent granted in 1990 to scientists at the University of Colorado and Columbia in New York. They discovered that high levels of an amino acid, homocysteine, in the blood or urine tended to be associated with a deficiency of B vitamins. But their patent does not just relate to the test they invented. It asserts their ownership of the idea of correlating the two chemicals - leading to the charge that they have patented a law of nature, rather than a human invention.

"Unfortunately for the public, the Metabolite case is only one example of a much broader patent problem in this country," the bestselling novelist Michael Crichton wrote in the New York Times at the weekend. "We grant patents at a level of abstraction that is unwise, and it's gotten us into trouble in the past."

The idea that even thinking about a correlation could infringe a patent "smacks of thought control, to say nothing of unenforceability", he added.' http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0321-05.htm

what next :banghead:

[neoblues]

1. Hold it! You can't think about "Thought Control"...

The republicans have patented it.

[bridgit]

2. well, that's what i thought...

x(

[neoblues]

4. No problem... sign a non-disclosure agreement and

pay the rethuglican party $1 million dollars and you can think about 'thought control' in private for a set period of time. However, you may not discuss the concept with others--lest the secret get out.

Some secret; just look at how they confuse people's ability to think about their egregious programs and policies by their very choice of names ("Patriot Act", "Clean Air Act", yada, yada, yada). No doubt that's the least of their though controlling activities too.

[drm604]

3. This sounds like it should be pretty clear cut to me.

This is a scientific discovery rather than a unique non-obvious process or device. There's no way this should be patented (in my humble non-lawyer opinion).
I wonder which side has been winning the lower court judgments and which side is pushing it into higher and higher courts. Anyone know?

[elehhhhna]

5. USPTO Specifically states that Laws of Nature cannot be patented.

Period.