[permaculture-oceania] Fungi Patent

[jedd]

On Tuesday 12 September 2006 11:31 pm, Douglas Barnes wrote:
 ] It is my understanding that Paul Stamets (a permaculture guy himself) is patenting mycelium species to keep them out of corporate hands. I am going to take a course with him soon, so when I do, I'll ask him about it.

 IANAL, so I'm hoping someone can fill in some gaps on this stuff.

 From my [very basic] understanding, you can't patent a species,
 so much as a process that perhaps relies upon that species.  Ie,
 it's the application of that organism, rather than the organism
 itself, that you're patenting -- IIRC this is what's happened with
 various genome sections in human medicine.

 Prior art should come into play with much of this stuff -- yes, it
 incurs a legal battle (of some size) in the event it ever goes to
 court, but as soon as the process is publicly documented by some
 nice person, any subsequent bad person will have a helluva problem
 convincing a court that they thought of it first.

 In the absence of GPL-style licences for this kind of technology,
 I'd still be slightly dubious about the safety of these patents in
 the hands of any individual or group -- as they are still then
 vulnerable to licence fees & restrictions down the track.

 Jedd.