OT on DNA (or maybe not so OT) (Re: Meeting with a political person)

[Simo Sorce]

On Sun, 2002-01-20 at 00:43, kim2 at bruning.demon.nl wrote:
> 
> 
> On Sat, 19 Jan 2002, Alexandre Dulaunoy wrote:
> 
[snip]
> I'm pretty much against people patenting genes. It makes it technically
> illegal to do things like grow certain plants or to have sex. ^^;;;;;
> 
> Another reason it's a bad idea to patent genes is because well, it's
> source code!
> 
> Maybe the biology world needs something like the FSF too. ^^;;

Many fields would need that ...


The only thing that make me question why at all patenting on biology is
beeing discussed at all is:

people discover things in biology do no create or invent anything (yet).

I do not patent stars or comets or asteroids when I discover one with a
telescope why should someone be permitted to patent a biological
organism part when he discover it through a microsope???

Any one planning to patent the moon?

... aside I think the joing the 2 arguments is a nono, they are too
different and motivations against patentability in biology are largely
different from that in software.

Let's keep things separate and speak only on things we really know
about.

-- 
Simo Sorce
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