patents/licenses and Taq/Pfu DNA polymerase

[Duncan Clark]

Historians believe that in newspost <d50m26$ihg$1 at news.doit.wisc.edu> on 
Sat, 30 Apr 2005, DK <dk at no.email.thankstospam.net> penned the following 
literary masterpiece:
>In article <bz70viDc16bCFAbd at abuse.plus.com>, Duncan Clark <news at genesysltd.co.uk> wrote:
>>All Hotstart methods are covered by patents,
>>regardless of what they are.
>
>Wow.

I don't know of a non-patented Hotstart method out of the many 
available.

>Makes me wonder why no one yet patented all gel
>electrophoreis methods, regardless of what they are.

If electrophoresis was invented now then I have no doubt it would be 
patented.

>
>More and more, patents and patent laws are becoming
>more and more ridiculous.

$$$

That's why.

We all land up paying the patent lawyers.

So if you want to be well off, become a biotech patent lawyer.

However maybe it is patents that also drive the inventions. If something 
useful is patented then there is a large effort, in the molecular 
biology field, to find alternatives. Without PCR there wouldn't be cycle 
sequencing and all the alternative amplification technologies - albeit 
they too are patented. But it does give some sort of choice.

Duncan
-- 
I love deadlines. I especially like the whooshing noise they make as
they go flying by.

Duncan Clark
GeneSys Ltd.