Torah Study > Chapter 5: Self and Community > Case Studies

Case Studies

Whose Game is it anyway?

Fifteen kids came out to play on the empty lot one summer day. Jason
brought the football. Jason wasn’t very good, even on a good day, and
this wasn’t one of those. After 45 minutes, Jason left and he took the ball
with him.

What were Jason’s rights? What were the teams’ rights? What were Jason’s
responsibilities to the other players? What were the other players’ responsibilities to Jason? What do you think is the right thing to do in this situation? Why?

Does it make a difference if Jason:

1. left because he was frustrated? He hadn’t touched the ball once;
was never in the center of the action and felt like he was being
overlooked.

2. left because he got hurt when he was being tackled?

3. left because he got stung by a bee, to which he was allergic?

4. left because his family was going to visit his grandparents?

5. was afraid to leave the ball because it was his father’s high school
game ball?

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Designer Genes: Who owns the rights to life?

A patent application is judged on four criteria. The invention must be “useful”
in a practical sense (the inventor must identify some useful purpose for it),
“novel” (i.e., not known or used before the filing), and “nonobvious” (i.e., not
an improvement easily made by someone trained in the relevant area). The
invention also must be described in sufficient detail to enable one skilled in
the field to use it for the stated purpose (sometimes called the “enablement”
criterion).

In general, raw products of nature are not patentable. DNA products usually
become patentable when they have been isolated, purified, or modified to
produce a unique form not found in nature.

The patenting of gene fragments is controversial. Some say that patenting
such discoveries is inappropriate because the effort to find any given EST
(Expressed Sequence Tag) is small compared with the work of isolating
and characterizing a gene and gene product, finding out what it does, and
developing a commercial product. According to this position allowing holders
of such “gatekeeper” patents to exercise undue control over the commercial
fruits of genome research would be unfair. Similarly, allowing multiple patents
on different parts of the same genome sequence --say on a gene fragment,
the gene, and the protein-- adds undue costs to the researcher who wants
to examine the sequence. Not only does the researcher have to pay each
patent holder for the opportunity to study the sequence, he also has to pay
his own staff to research the different patents and determine which are
applicable to the area of the genome he wants to study.

Arguments for gene patenting:

• Researchers are rewarded for their discoveries and can use monies
gained from patenting to further their research.

• The investment of resources is encouraged by providing a monopoly to
the inventor and prohibiting competitors from making, using, or selling
the invention without a license.

• Wasteful duplication of effort is prevented.

• Research is forced into new, unexplored areas.

• Secrecy is reduced and all researchers are ensured access to the new
invention.

Arguments against gene patenting:

• Patents of partial and uncharacterized DNA sequences will reward
those who make routine discoveries but penalize those who determine
biological function or application (inappropriate reward given to
the easiest step in the process).

• Patents could impede the development of diagnostics and therapeutics
by third parties because of the costs associated with using
patented research data.

• Patent stacking (allowing a single genomic sequence to be patented
in several ways such as an EST, a gene, and a SNP) may discourage
product development because of high royalty costs owed to all patent
owners of that sequence; these are costs that will likely be passed on
to the consumer.

• Because patent applications remain secret until granted, companies
may work on developing a product only to find that new patents have
been granted along the way, with unexpected licensing costs and
possible infringement penalties.

• Costs increase not only for patent licensing but also for determining
what patents apply and who has rights to downstream products.

• Patent holders are being allowed to patent a part of nature—a basic
constituent of life; this allows a person or company to own all or part
of another organism.

• Private biotechs who own certain patents can monopolize test
markets for particular genes.

• Patent filings are replacing journal articles as places for public disclosure
--reducing the body of knowledge in the literature.

Source:
http://www.ornl.gov/sci/techresources/Human_Genome/elsi/patents.shtml


FOR THE PARTICIPANTS:
Identify the players: who are the “self” and the “community.”
Identify the various rights and obligations belonging to each party.
Create an “ethics panel” to hear the pros and cons presented by two
opposing groups. Have the panel issue its findings at the end.

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