You Don't "Own" Your Own Genes

[Arakasi]

I think there is something fundamentally wrong with copyright law in the first place. The problem is that I can't quite put my finger on what it is, or how to fix it. But I do know it results in odd cases such as this.

This is patent law, not copyright law (though perhaps the Monsanto stuff qualifies). The results are not so much odd, as broken. Patents are meant to protect new processes and ideas so that the inventor doesn't get their ideas stolen. But what we've got are patents that are neither process nor idea. It would make sense to patent a particular therapy or use for a particular gene, but it's absurd that the gene itself can effectively be patented.

Perhaps there needs to be a clearer distinction between discovery and invention, and that would solve the problem. Say for example if you discover a planet, you don't get to claim copyright (or patient, whatever) on images of the planet. Same would apply to genes presumably.
That would also protect people who create new genome sequences which solve various problems.

 

[FalloutJack]

I think that if anyone were to own the genes, it would be the one who made them. All of them. For everything that lives.

Yeah, that guy.

Does...that make this '/thread', then?

 

[StormShaun]

If someone did tell me that they "Owned my genes", well I think I would have the right to hit them over the head with multiple objects until they gave me ownership.

Now that I have decided to read the OP. I agree with FalloutJack up there.
I'll believe I am my own person and I only belong to myself and (If your religious like me) God.

Now good day sir ... I hope you do not become someone's slave.

 

[HardkorSB]

also before some of you go completely apeshit over this I?d like to point out that as far as I understand ( and feel free to correct me on this ) no one actually ?owns? the gene?s they just own their usage . and you would only be infringing on their patents If you happen to come up with something that uses those genes . but even so owning a combination of DNA and the procedures for making things with them is way more power then i want corporations to have .

I don't think you can patent an ingredient (unless you've created the ingredient yourself).
I can patent a new kind of sugary drink but not sugar itself. Similarly, I can patent something I have created using a particular DNA sample but not the sample.