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The Tragedy of a Bad Idea

By Donald Zuhn, Kevin Noonan, Chris Singer, Sherri Oslick, and Jason Derry

By Kevin E. Noonan -- Some (bad) ideas are a long time a-dyin'. One of the most persistent in biotechnology patent law is the concept of the "tragedy of the anticommons." An intriguing idea when first proposed by Heller and Eisenberg in 1998, it was also frightfully naïve about the "anticommons" effects of circumstances much more germane to most academic molecular biologists (like priority and career advancement). The core idea was that permitting genes (particularly and parochially human genes) to be patented would create a "tragedy of the anticommons," where private ownership (however limited in duration) would somehow prevent genetic...

Full post as published by Patent Docs on August 26, 2009 (boomark / email).