I meant to post this the other day, but I’m still ironing out the kinks after finally getting .htaccess to protect my reFeed install.
The Supreme Court will be hearing a case about a patent. A company called Metabolite holds the patent on a test for homocysteine levels, but that same patent correlates elevated homocysteine levels with vitamin deficiency. Metabolite is suing LabCorp because the latter company published an article that mentiones the correlation, although a different test was used.
Michael Crichton has an essay at NYTimes.com with more details about the sad state of the US Patent System. Nate Anderson has a further examination of the news at Ars.
Witness what occurs when one tries to use a centuries-old legal system to govern technology that changes by the hour. Add to that the inefficiencies and simple incompetence that results in this particular area of law (intellectual property) because the US Constitution vests in the Congress the sole power “to promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries.” U.S. Const. Art. I, Sect. 8. Hence the reason IP law is (1) exclusively federal, (2) majorly screwed up, and (3) well behind the times. I’m not suggesting we hand IP law to the states, because the lack of uniformity that would result would almost certainly be as bad as the current system. However, what could be better than allowing 535 people at the federal level control a system most of them barely understand? Simple…allowing 9 people, all completely cut off from reality, decide the same types of issues.
Nine monkeys would also work. Monkeys are well-documented to have a strong aptitude for IP law. OK, not documented, but the litte devils know their fair use, trust me. I’m a lawyer.