On Sun, 23 Jul 2006, Gus S Calabrese wrote:

> Please explain.
> Why would you unsubscribe ?

That may be my choice.

> Did the University of California use PICs ?

The thread is [OT]. the regents of the UC own several other copyrights 
that may affect me, for example several on open source operating 
systems, like NetBSD and FreeBSD files.

> Keep in mind that a court determined this.

The court found UC and the doctors not guilty of exploitation, and 
*that* is the worse part of the story. Presumably the University charged 
the sick man for his treatment or part thereof (or his insurance). In 
addition to this, part of the money used to operate the University is 
from public funding (state contributions), as far as I understand.

> It was not a patent issue.

The regents and the doctors were able to patent a product derived 
directly from fraud and misrepresentation commited against a patient, 
using biological material that can be genetically traced to the patient 
(and the product can still be traced back to the patient presumably). If 
that is legal, then presumably picking a forgotten or discarded (because 
imperfect or unsuitable for production) GE soy plant part (say, a cut 
leaf) from a field and developing a new breed based on that, and selling 
it, is also ok ? And when sued by, say, Monsanto, one would win against 
Monsanto in court ? Maybe not ? Or are people and their 'discarded 
parts' in the public domain ? And if they are in the public domain, then 
how come someone can patent a product based on a public domain part 
anyway ? And if they are not in the public domain then how come that in 
the land of the famous DMCA someone can reverse engineer, and gainfully 
sell something based on those discarded parts, which were not discarded, 
but purposefully extracted, for the purpose of analysis followed by 
disposal, as opposed to cloning ? This is VERY MUCH about patents and 
property rights. Did you know that they used to hang doctors who got 
caught stealing cadaver parts to practice anatomy and surgery on, not so 
long ago ?

Some people consent to donate parts and even their body to the 
furtherment of medicine. This does not mean that they all do that, it 
means EXACTLY THE OPPOSITE of that.

> It was an issue of property rights, disclosure and
> fraud.

Exactly. And a court confirmed that such things can happen unpunished, 
and that they will happen again. I wonder what that man's insurance 
thinks about this, as it probably footed part of the bills he must have 
run up. It would be VERY interesting to see how far this goes.

Peter
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