If a Patented Gene Appears in a Song, Who Gets the Royalty?

Oh, those lawyers! Too bad, they don't really invent anything, they only use somebody else's stuff. The music derived from nucleic acid sequences was created long time ago. Back in 1995 a tape with such music was available and distributed at the international conference on the structure and function of the ribosome in Victoria, British Columbia. Anybody who wanted could get a tape at the conference. The music was not a timeless masterpiece, but it was cohesive and even somewhat pleasing. The tape was in 1995, clearly the idea was even before that.

Boooooo!!! Hissss!!! Do these lawyers really plan to litigate against patient advocates like this one: http://www.sophiasgarden.org/programs_music.html Boooooo! We have their names, maybe we should track them down and ask them?

I am outraged. So called IP law has gotten way way way out of hand. What right do they have to a patent? Are they protecting their ability to be compensated for research and development costs? I doubt it. If someone paid the processing fee for a patent before anyone else to obtain rights to... say.. the synthesizer. Should that person be entitled to royalties every time a human being hears a song with a electronically generated melody? By precedent the U.S. Pat&Tm office says yes. In the near future middle class people wont be able to walk outside their home. As strolling past trees and bushes will generate expensive costs owed to lawyers and patent holders.

I'm not a patent expert, but it seems to me that there is considerable prior art in this field - the patent office may therefore not be able to give the lawyers much in the way of claims.

This is an indication that we ought to be supporting the "Peer to Patent" endeavor: http://dotank.nyls.edu/communitypatent/about.html

It looks like a bunch of high school kids in Milwaukee, WI (US), did this in 1993: http://access.ncsa.uiuc.edu/Archive/backissues/93.1/93.1SQuestwinners.html (I know, my name's on the list, but i was replaced by another student)

The patent office obviously doesn't really look into any of the claims. http://whozoo.org/mac/Music / http://algoart.com / This guys been doing dna transcribed computer music for a while now.