Patent
gregladen | July 31, 2010Item 1:
Linux has perfectly good fonts these days, and they are getting better.
Patents held by Apple Corporation did not allow basic technology (the Bytecode Interpreter)to be implemented in Linux fonts (without paying). FreeType (the Linux font system) worked around this and things were workable, but still, having the Apple technology would have been better. But now....
As of May 2010, those patents have expired and as of July 12 with version 2.4.0, Freetype ships with the Bytecode Interpreter enabled. Version 2.4.1 was released July 18 to address a small bug found in 2.4.0. Freetype is…
rskloot | November 2, 2009
Some interesting news about the breast cancer patent lawsuit I wrote about for Slate's Double X Magazine a few months ago: A federal district court has just agreed to hear the case. When the lawsuit was first filed, many legal experts I talked to said they were sure the case would get thrown out of court for it's unusual approach, namely that it claims that the practice of patenting genes is unconstitutional See my story about the case here. Filings and other documents related to the case available here. And see below for the full press release about today's news:
Court Upholds Right…
rskloot | May 17, 2009Speaking of the debate over patents interfering with medical care, there's a story in today's New York Times that mentions the drug Iplex, which has shown promise for treating Lou Gehrig's disease -- a deadly and thus far untreatable degenerative disease (also known as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis).
From the article:
Iplex ... is believed to protect the motor neurons whose
death leads to paralysis in A.L.S. Some patients had persuaded their
doctors to prescribe the drug when the F.D.A. approved it in late 2006
for children with growth deficiencies. "I started on Tuesday," Debbie Gattoni…
rskloot | May 15, 2009
Earlier this week, the American Civil Liberties Union and several other groups filed suit against Myriad Genetics -- the company that holds the patent on the breast cancer gene. They're hoping to get the breast cancer gene patent revoked, but more than that, they're aiming to stop gene patenting all together.
Today, in my new column in Slate's Double X Magazine, I go into the story of the breast cancer gene and the impact the ACLU claims it's had on science and patient care (a hint: it's not good). I also look at the suit itself, the cases that have come before this one, and what they say…
bioephemera | April 27, 2009
I'm off to visit the Supreme Court tomorrow, so I thought I'd share some law news for a change. In a landmark patent decision, Federal Circuit Judge Richard Posner has ruled that the sex toy shown above is "obvious."
You can read the explanation at Patently-O, but suffice it to say that the gap between the legal sense of the word "obvious" and its colloquial sense may be as wide as the gap for "theory" (as in, "but evolution is just a theory.") Honestly, I would not have known this was a sex toy if I hadn't been told. It looks like a bottle opener. Perhaps the dry design schematic leaches…