Next week the Supreme Court will hear arguments in LabCorp versus Metabolite, an interesting case that visits the patent controversy in the United States. Are test result correlations patentable? Michael Crichton provides his opinion.

Digg Description:

“It means that if a real estate agent lists a house for sale, he can be sued because an existing patent for selling houses includes item No. 7, ‘List the house.’ It means nobody can write a dinosaur story because my patent includes 257 items covering all aspects of behavior, like item No. 13, ‘Dinosaurs attack humans and other dinosaurs.’”

read more | digg story

This is an incredible story. What is even more incredible is the reaction to the story (see the comments, including a “fake” comment by someone pretending to be the student and another one that may or may not be from “her” lawyer.) Then, after you read about all that, click on “Main” at the top of the page to see more current updates to what happened. Apparently it has been resolved and the blogger is going to post a wrap up sometime soon.

The power of blogs. What a crazy world we live in! With the Internet comes more opportunities for that “15 minutes of fame” but that fame is double-edged.

What do you think? Do you think the blogger was right in his actions? Did he go too far?

Crazy talk!

California Assembly Member Lloyd Levine is calling for a ban on pet cloning. Why?

• Pet cloning is unregulated.
• Animal shelters are filled to capacity.
• “Who knows what’s going to happen if these things get released into the wild?”
• Vulnerable people are being exploited.

My response to Mr. Levine:

• Instead of banning pet cloning, why not regulate the industry? Better yet, let people decide for themselves.
• If people are paying good money to clone their beloved pet, what makes you think they are going to end up sending them to an animal shelter? If someone prefers a clone of their pet to a pet from an animal shelter, who are you to judge their preference?
• Things? Sounds like a xenophobic statement. What do you expect to happen?
• The service of cloning is expensive. If someone wants to pay $50,000 for a pet clone, why not? The price will likely come down over the next few years as the technology is improved and competitors enter the market. How exactly are individuals who choose this service being exploited and why are they vulnerable?

This fear of new technology is going too far. What’s next? Banning Apple’s iPod as a weapon of mass destruction?