From: Charles Hixson (charleshixsn@earthlink.net)
Date: Mon Aug 12 2002 - 09:21:51 MDT
Sabine Atkins wrote:
> 6 August 2002
>
> Of pharmers and chimeras
> by Scott Anderson
>
> The green fields that ostentatiously carpet the hills of Scotland are
> home to the drug factories of the Roslin Institute. These factories ...
> For over two decades, the patent office has issued patents on living
> creatures that were created, for the most part, by splicing genes. But
> they draw a line when the product of the patent is a human or a human
> embryo. That makes sense; but to Rifkin and Newman, these patents
> start us down that dreaded slippery slope to human debasement. In
> their opinion, the only way to avoid this fate is to ban gene patents
> altogether.
>
> ...
>
> Reprinted from : http://www.spiked-online.com/Articles/00000006D9BF.htm
>
> --
> Sabine Atkins,
> http://www.posthuman.com/
>
That's not such a bad idea. The patent office does an extremely bad job
of managing patents in technical areas. The patent clerks are required
to quickly make decisions in areas where they have no expertise. I,
personally, feel that we would be much better off it patents had never
touched the area of computer programs, and recent trends have caused me
to start hearing the same comments from biology specialists of various
stripes.
My goal may not be the same as his, but the proposed procedure seems
like a really good idea. Patents should apply to a particular way of
using a process to accomplish a particular goal. That is what they are
designed for. When used for that purpose they are a valuable and
worthwhile legal function. As currently used, they are merely a way for
monopolies to consolidate their stranglehold on commerce, and we'd all
be better off without them. Many companies, even those that accumulate
large patent portfolios, agree with this. They just don't want to go
un-armed when all of their opponents carry uzi's, but many of them join
in non-aggression treaties (patent-pools). This is all right for them,
and perhaps even helps them slightly by keeping down the competition.
But it cuts out everyone who can't afford to join. Which means nearly
all small and medium sized businesses.
So how are the current patents being granted? Xerox was granted a
patent on a way to use a particular process for a particular end. So
was Polaroid. Both developed huge corporations around that. So
restricting patents in the way that I propose (as they were, in other
words) is not excessively limiting. But it wouldn't allow you to patent
agcccttagctttatta... just because you noticed it. You could, however,
patent the right to use it in a particular way. However (to use a
phrase from the 1950's) "patenting the periodic table" should not be
allowed. (I.e.: "In this process we use an element usually, but not
necessarily from the 5th column and frequently, but not always from the
3rd group...". The point here is that any element at all fits this
description, so it is unreasonably vague. But it was allowed more than
once.)
Patents are inherrently dangerous, being a kind of government assured
monopoly. So if they are to cause more good than harm they need to be
carefully regulated. I started noticing comments during the 1950's that
indicated that at least some patent attorneys though that the boundary
had been crossed, and they were starting to become more harmful than
beneficial. During the intervening years the process has only gotten
worse, and for the last decade it has been noticable even by people who
never have to deal directly with the patent office. And it is still
getting worse.
Personally, I think that this is possibly one of the mechanisms that the
government is taking to slow down the approach of the singularity. Not
that it was intentionally designed to that effect. Large organizations
don't work that way. But they also like their environment to be
"comfortable", and "excessive change" can easily be seen as
uncomfortable. The individuals who work in the organizations will have
other reasons for their choices, but the same is true of people and
their cells (sponges and their cells would be a more accurate analogy,
but less immediately understandable).
As an aside on a separate topic: The reality of organizations
Thermometers don't measure the speed of atoms, but only the average
speed of atoms. Cloud chambers, however, can measure the speed of
individual atoms (well, ions). Is one more real than the other? In a
sense, yes. Whichever level you have senses to detect is real.
Everything else is derived. So, when we interact as individuals, then
the organizations are fictions, and the individuals are the reality.
And for one individual to claim that "I'm not doing this, it's the
company" is a blatant lie. But when we interact indirectly, with no
identifiable individual, then perhaps it's the company that is real, and
not the individual with which we are dealing, whom we will probably
never meet, and who may even be using a nom de job. "Hi, I'm your
Ernest Entwhistle today!". And when these large organizations interact
with each other, the individuals that do the interacting are relatively
unimportant, and subject to replacement at will. So in those
interactions, the people are the figments, and the organizations are the
real. Frequently when an organization wants to change it's image, it
will change it's spokesman in coordination with the change in the
message, but though the typical map that people use says that the person
replaced was in charge of the message, this isn't acutally clear. There
may well be some kind of feedback relation. Most executives don't
really have a free hand, and I'm not convinced that the hard-working
on-the-job-24-hours-a-day kind actually exert any more control than the
more relaxed ones. They definitely exert a different control, but
that's not saying the same thing.
Back to Mr. Rifkin... He is definitely a spokesman for one point of
view, and is effecive in getting policy to crystalize around it. But he
seems to move in and out of prominence, and not on his own schedule. I
might guess that when the larger organization (what organisation?) sees
that it's time to allow him in, that he shows up. It's a rather
dangerous ploy, as he could severely damage the economy of the entire
country, but large organizations don't seem to exhibit much foresight.
Think of it as evolution in action, but being played out among the
organizations rather than at the level of individuals. And evolution
has lamentably little foresight.
-- -- Charles Hixson Gnu software that is free, The best is yet to be.
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