Well, tomatoes are cool. Here's my MS thesis paper....
http://www.plantphysiol.org/cgi/content/abstract/117/4/1393
We found the corresponding gene in Arabidopsis that plays a role in the tomato flavor pathway. It was paid for by a grant from Heinz. :-)
Sorry to hear about the meds and the court order. I understand.... (giggle)
After that experience with tomatoes, I had to leave the lab and go into patent law instead. It was a result of one too many electrophoresis gels and western blots....I couldn't take it any more.
Injured Chicken
Ooooo I work for one of Heinz competitors! My PhD grant was paid for by the Californian Tomato Growers. I've never liked tomatoes--now I am up to my armpits in them. Fortunately my thesis was on the race structure of Verticillium dahliae--so I never had to mess with Arapidopsis. Flavor is a BIG thing--but so elusive. I will definitely read you thesis.
It's so old news now... nothing exciting. But the flavor pathway continues to intrigue me. Now I just draft and prosecute plant science patents, instead of actually doing the science. That way I am still in the field (which I enjoy) but not at the bench (which I hate).
How can I get into that wonderful position? I am standing out in tomato fields across three continents in 116 degree weather saying--Nice tomato.
Do you need special training to write patents? Are there classes?
To be a patent agent (which is what I am currently) you need to pass the patent bar exam, which is not easy, but if you have done a PhD, it will be cake. The first time pass rate is about 35%, so don't think that it's no big deal - it's just it won't be any problem for you to study for it. Once you pass the patent bar exam, you get a registration number and you can work as a patent agent. In order to take the patent bar exam, you must have a science degree, which obviously you do. (or engineering).
A company called PLI offers classes in preparing for the patent bar.
http://www.pli.edu/patentcenter/patentbarreview/
Patent law is the only branch of law you can practice without a JD. I have been an agent for 6 years and now my company is paying for me to take the JD part time, so that I can also practice contract law and do licensing agreements. I think it will be worth it. That said, patent agents in corporate settings make relatively good salaries (70,000 +, more in DC) and work basically 9 to 5 type hours. The job, besides the writing, includes interviewing scientists about their work (so you can write about it), learning about "freedom to operate" and doing FTO analysis for new techniques or genetic elements the scientists want to work with, making patentability recommendations, and arguing with patent examiners at the US patent office about science and why you deserve a patent for an invention that they try to argue is obvious or not novel.
It's cool because you learn about (and write about) cutting edge science that is still confidential to the public, so you are always right out there are the edge of what's new. I love the job, but it's not for everyone. You do have to be a bit of a nerd.
If being a nerd were the main qualification, you'd have more of us chicken heads out there with you.
With everybody in competition with Monsanto/Seminis it is all patents now. You have to collect them like playing cards--I want to use your flavor enhancer gene--I'll trade you two disease resistance and drought tolerance. Really, I'm not kidding--nature is under assault--but it will win. It always does.
Yes, fortunately I'm not with them. I am with the competition. :-)
Oh, I'm in the competition too. The neat thing is the research--I read patents on line and think--But I knew that--just didn't see the patent potential.
Now what can we patent with chickens?
If we patent enough won't it be illegal to do anything anymore?
You must be with the "other" competition. Which means we are against each other...grumble....
No, grownut, but that is a commonly held belief. See, you can't patent natural life forms in their natural state. What you could patent, for example, is a chicken gene, used in its isolated state, or used as a transgene in another chicken (but not through natural breeding, only through transformation). So that doesn't mean it's illegal to breed chickens - it would just mean that you can't go into the chicken genome, pull out that one gene, and use it in its isolated form or as a transgene. You can still do whatever you want through natural breeding methods. :-)
Urfff. I'm a linguist, fer cryin' out loud.
Actually that was clear, succinct, and I'm grateful, but urff nonetheless.
So provided I don't go pulling isolated patented genes or get to dabbling in transgenes I'm in the clear? It still seems like something that could easily snowball beyond usefulness, somehow. May I ask precisely how this patenting is beneficial and to whom? I have uncles who have done a fair amount of patenting, but they do all sorts of fiberglass and chemical process construction stuff and need to claim their processes before they lose the right to use them. How does it work with organics? To what extent is a gene a salable commodity? Or how, rather?
I think we are pretty minor competitors. But we do get to sit in meeting where our international patent attorney tries to give us pep talks about identifying patentable traits in our breeding material. I remember thinking, this is really confusing and ill-defined. But I think it might be because there were so many differences between US and European patents--and we do both.
Fascinating.
Essentially, yes, you are in the clear.
This patenting is highly controversial, of course, and there are probably some who will disagree with my viewpoint, but I will air it anyway. Finding genes is easy. Figuring out what they do, and how they do it, is more difficult. Then learning how to manipulate them is harder still. So for a nice innocuous, fictitious example, let's say somebody finds a breed of green color chicken that lays purple eggs. They could breed those chickens naturally, and eventually try to make other breeds that lay purple eggs. Or, they could fish out the gene that is responsible (assuming it's a single gene, which is unlikely, but this is a fictitious example). So, they spend ten million dollars on the research equipment, staff, time, etc to find the gene and figure out how it works. Then, they take the gene and transform it into a white leghorn. Suddenly, they have white leghorns laying purple eggs. To do that by natural breeding, you might end up with other qualities of the other chickens in the leghorn, like green tail colors, traits, etc. The transformation way just inserts that single gene and doesn't affect any other aspect of the leghorn. So, the company that spent the 10 million gets a patent for a 20 year term (maximum) that will give them the right to stop others from using the purple egg gene in that specific way, and only that specific way. Anybody can still breed with the original purple egg chicken in other ways, anybody can still breed the leghorns, anybody can find other genes of interest in the purple egg layers, etc. The company who made the huge investment benefits from a time limited exclusive use, which in my opinion they should be entitled to, because they spent all the money and effort to find it.
Also, if they let just anybody use it (i.e. didn't patent it) then Egg Megacorp would come in, make a bunch of purple layers, and make twenty million a month in purple egg sales, even though they did NONE of the work or original investment. Is that fair? I don't think so, personally.
So, the patenting benefits the company who put in the investment of time and money, and gives them exclusivity for 20 years, after which anybody can use the purple egg gene however they want (and by which time the original company may have gone on to find the polka dot egg gene, etc). If patents were not available, companies would not find it worth it to put in the time, effort, and cash to investigate these things. Pharmaceutical companies is a good example - most companies aren't going to pay millions to create new drugs if they can't recoup some of those millions for the products they create. That is the only way for them to continue doing new drug research. If they didn't patent them, they would go out of business in a heartbeat and nobody would have the money to find and make the new drugs except for a few manufacturers at the top of the food chain.
Patents are only good for 20 years - so the term is finite, and then everybody benefits from the research (even though they didn't contribute to it).
Hope that provides some explanation...
Claire
Yes, thanks a bunch. My uncles, I knew, were of the defensive patenting set...
Your idea then is that the patent process is valid and necessary for incentivizing research because it provides the ability to capitalize. What sorts of projects are we incentivizing with genetic patenting? Or should I leave you be? I really am interested. I've heard argument on this, but never thought process behind it, before now.