Technology News
|
We've covered the Mayo v. Promethus Labs case for a while now. This is the lawsuit over the patentability of medical diagnostic techniques. If that sounds crazy to you, you're not alone. Promethius got a patent on a specific way of testing for a disease, and got into a legal fight with the Mayo Clinic, because Mayo dared to diagnose without paying them. Tragically, an appeals court said this was fine. Many doctors were, quite understandably, horrified at all of this. The idea that they could violate a patent merely by understanding the science and running a test to detect an ailment? Horrifying and ridiculous. When the Supreme Court agreed to pick up the case, we had hoped it meant that some common sense might prevail.
However, that's looking doubtful. The oral arguments were just heard in the case, and as Tim Lee points out, they don't sound good. You can read the full transcript below, but the oral discussion was extremely narrowly focused on the patentability of this particular diagnostic test, with many comments suggesting that the patentability of a general diagnostic test is not even in question. In fact, Mayo's own lawyer seemed to concede the point and didn't even bother to argue the issue:
Unfortunately, the justices seemed oblivious to these arguments. And the man who should have been making them, Mayo counsel Stephen Shapiro, completely ignored them. Instead, he seemed to concede the legality of medical patents in general, and focused on nitpicking the details of Prometheus's patent. Specifically, he noted that the patent covers a broad range of metabolite levels and applies for many different autoimmune diseases, and argued that this made the patent invalid.
Asked by Justice Kennedy if a more specific and complex diagnostic technique involving "two or three different drugs" could be eligible for patent protection, Shapiro said yes. "If it leaves room for others to have their own tests with different numbers and different procedures so that it isn't just one test for the whole country, then yes, if it's specific enough," he said. "The specificity is the key."
Justice Scalia pointed out that making patent-eligibility turn on how complex the diagnostic strategy was, or on how many diseases it claimed to address, was totally unworkable. Shapiro's proposal, he said, was "not a patent rule that we could possibly apply."
Justices Scalia and Breyer showed some skepticism that patents could cover the use of scientific correlations in medical practice. But the other justices expressed no such skepticism. At one point, Justice Kagan offered some advice to Prometheus's lawyer. "What you haven't done is say at a certain number you should use a certain treatment, at another number you should use another treatment," she said. "I guess the first question is why didn't you file a patent like that? Because that clearly would have been patentable. Everybody agrees with that."
Except, as Lee notes, not everyone agrees with that. In fact many different groups, including the American Medical Association, argued exactly the opposite in briefs on the case.
For what's it worth, what's discussed in the oral hearing is not always all that relevant to how the case actually turns out. The briefs are often more important. But, either way, it's not looking good. After a few good years in the mid-2000s, where the Supreme Court really beat back patent excesses, the more recent patent courts have been timid to the point of ridiculous. In the end, it seems like this case may turn out like the Bilski case, where the Supreme Court had the opportunity to rule broadly on software and business method patents, but chose to ignore the issue, focusing only on the specific patent in question.
This seems like a huge waste of the Supreme Court's time and collective intellect. People look to SC rulings to set precedent and clarify points of law. Ruling extremely narrowly based on just the specifics of the patent itself doesn't clear up any confusion. Instead, it just makes things worse.Permalink | Comments | Email This Story
Read more at.... |
|
|
Nokia has enough on its plate with trying to stay relevant in the smartphone market and gearing up for the U.S. launch of its first Windows Phone. Trying to sell mobile phones that cost tens of thousands and even hundreds of thousands of dollars? Nokia's done with that and is reportedly looking for a buyer to snatch up its luxury Vertu subsidiary known for selling cell phones at outlandish prices.
Vertu's Signature Cobra was a $310,000 cell phone launched in 2006 and ranks as the company's most expensive cell phone to date. There are plenty of more 'affordable' models in Vertu's cell phone stable, like the $13,300 Signature Stainless Steel or $6,200 Constellation (Vertu's first full touchscreen handset).
Nokia created the luxurious brand in 1998, and now the Finnish phone maker is ready to give up its bling so it can focus its efforts on rebuilding its own brand. According to a report in the Financial Times, Nokia has hired Goldman Sachs to oversee the sale.
It's unclear how much Nokia is hoping to fetch, though Vertu's annual revenue is estimated to be in the neighborhood of $268 million to a little over $400 million, FT said. Vertu has a presence in more than 60 countries and reportedly doubled its sales growth in 2010.
Image Credit: Vertu Read more at.... |
|
|
Life is short, play dirty. It's a motto we'd love to see Nike implement in a new sports shoe, maybe one with a steel tipped shank on the front or soles made of flubber. In a more literal sense, playing dirty describes how we use (and sometimes neglect) our PCs. Are you rocking any fan filters? You should be, whether it's one of Lian Li's new removable and washable filters, or ones you've constructed on your own à la MacGuyver.
Let's start with Lian Li's filters. The case and peripheral maker just announced two easy-to-install/remove twist motion filters, PT-AF12-3B (for 120mm fans) and PT-AF-14-3B (for 140mm fans). These are tool-less filters that install and detach with a simple twist and are compatibly with most fans, regardless of manufacturer. They're also now being installed on all Lian Li cases, though you can also order them separately.
If you're not down with that, you can make your own fan filters but cutting up a pair of tights, pantyhose, air conditioner filter material, and generally any type of porous material that will allow air to flow through. Just make sure to fasten the material securely so your home brewed filter doesn't get sucked in by the fan blades.
Image Credit: Lian Li Read more at.... |
|
|
|
|
<< Start < Prev 431 432 433 434 435 436 437 438 439 440 Next > End >>
|
|
Page 437 of 453 |
|
