Matthew Hunter wrote: > On Wed, Dec 11, 2002 at 12:27:59PM +0800, Andrew Bailey <andrew at networkharmoni.com.au> wrote: > > > There IS, at least in the US. really? What form does it take? > What generates cartels is the fact > that we have copyright at all. Cartels are proxy copyright > enforcers; the problem is that only one entity can sell a > particular piece of music. Market distortion is inevitable. > I suppose. I mean there is only one Steven Brust ( unless he has a sweatshop of low paid workers turning out vlad novels , but somehow I doubt that ) but there are many Fantasy Authors, some might say too many. So there is competition for your entertainment inside the broader genre. This is different to patent law where the one known effective method for solving a problem can be held by one company. Does that make any sense? > >>For instance the entire "gene patenting" issue is about to become very >>interesting in australia. At least one state government is going to >>start agitating for changes to federal copyright law so that basically >>public hospitals can continue to provide some of the genetic screening >>test that they up until recently did provide for free. Now the owner of >>that "gene patent" has signed an exclusive license agreement with a >>private company, and no longer can these test be provided. > > > How else would you incent companies to fund gene research? > > It's obvious genes should not be copyrightable ("discovered" not > "created"), but tests are probably patentable. > I think the problem is that the tests are just maps to certain markers, my molecular biology is _very_ vauge, so usual disclamer, IANAMB , but the way I think it works is basically you look at someones DNA and if they have a particular combination then the test is positive. Does anyone out there know for sure? The reasearch generally involves finding the genes and is of course intensive and expensive :-( In Australia we had to explicitly pass legislation to allow "gene patents", now there looks like being some debate on the matter. Andrew.