The patents exist for 17 years.
This is a nice thought, but unworkable in practice. It takes 7-10 years for
an small molecule drug or biologic (protein based therapy) to go from basic
R&D to approval by the FDA.
JeffF
> -----Original Message-----
> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On
> Behalf Of Andrea Leistra
> Sent: Wednesday, October 18, 2000 4:44 PM
> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Subject: Re: patenting genes
>
>
> On Wed, 18 Oct 2000, David Hobby wrote:
>
> > Wouldn't short-term patents on genes do the job then? The company
> > that first recognizes the function of the gene gets to patent it for 5
> > or 10 years. Long enough for them to get something useful from it that
> > they could get a long-term patent on.
>
> To be fair, I think the current duration of patents is seven years.
> Which seems entirely reasonable.
>
> Now the perpetually-extending duration of copyrights is another can of
> worms entirely.
>
> --
> Andrea Leistra [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> If we could put a man on the moon, why can't we do it again?
>
