Category: Culture

A Look at the UW’s “Broad” Stem Cell Patents

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Antonio Regalado & David Hamilton:

The broadly worded patents, which cover nearly any use of human embryonic stem cells, are held by the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation, a nonprofit group that handles the school’s intellectual-property estate, managing a $1.5 billion endowment amassed during 80 years of marketing inventions.

John Simpson, an official at the foundation bringing the challenge, says WARF’s efforts to enforce its patents are “damaging, impeding the free flow of ideas and creating a problem.” Mr. Simpson’s group got involved in the dispute earlier this year after Wisconsin officials said they would demand a share of state revenue from California’s voter-approved stem-cell initiative.

WARF doesn’t charge academics to study stem cells, but it does ask commercial users to pay fees ranging from $75,000 to more than $250,000, plus annual payments and royalties. So far, 12 companies have licensed rights from WARF to use the cells, and more than 300 academic laboratories have agreements to use the technology without charge. WARF spokesman Andy Cohn declined to say how much the organization has earned from the patents so far but says it is less than what it has spent funding stem-cell research and paying legal costs.

Mute 19 Years, He Helps Reveal Brain’s Mysteries

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Benedict Carey:

Mr. Wallis, 42, wears an open, curious expression and speaks in a slurred but coherent voice. He volleys a visitor’s pleased-to-meet-you with, “Glad to be met,” and can speak haltingly of his family’s plans to light fireworks at his brother’s house nearby.

For his family, each word is a miracle. For 19 years — until June 11, 2003 — Mr. Wallis lay mute and virtually unresponsive in a state of minimal consciousness, the result of a head injury suffered in a traffic accident. Since his abrupt recovery — his first word was “Mom,” uttered at the sight of his mother — he has continued to improve, speaking more, remembering more.

But Mr. Wallis’ return to the world, and the progress he has made, have also been a kind of miracle for scientists: an unprecedented opportunity to study, using advanced scanning technology, how the human brain can suddenly recover from such severe, long-lasting injury.

Music Sales: Fewer Big Hits, Many More Sales at the Tail….

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Chris Anderson:

Larry Lessig pointed me to an interesting bit of research on filesharing and the decline of music sales in Denmark, which shows that the fall in sales has been felt far more in the hits than in the niches. The work, by Claus Pedersen, uses data from the Nordic Copyright Bureau. That means the data are not just estimates of sales declines, but actual sales. I’ve charted one aspect of the research, which looks at the change in sales in four sales categories, from bestsellers to the long tail:

Freedom to Farm: Program Pays $1.3B to People Who Don’t Farm

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Dan Morgan, Gilbert Gaul and Sarah Cohen:

Even though Donald R. Matthews put his sprawling new residence in the heart of rice country, he is no farmer. He is a 67-year-old asphalt contractor who wanted to build a dream house for his wife of 40 years.

Yet under a federal agriculture program approved by Congress, his 18-acre suburban lot receives about $1,300 in annual “direct payments,” because years ago the land was used to grow rice.

Matthews is not alone. Nationwide, the federal government has paid at least $1.3 billion in subsidies for rice and other crops since 2000 to individuals who do no farming at all, according to an analysis of government records by The Washington Post.

Some of them collect hundreds of thousands of dollars without planting a seed. Mary Anna Hudson, 87, from the River Oaks neighborhood in Houston, has received $191,000 over the past decade. For Houston surgeon Jimmy Frank Howell, the total was $490,709.

Dinner Potatoes: Fresh from Eau Claire via the Farmer’s Market

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Dashing around the Farmer’s Market early Saturday morning, I picked up 5lbs of potatoes. The (late teen/early 20’s?) daughters were moving a bit slow as they organized the vegetables and filled my bag with red potatoes. I inquired about this and one mentioned that they “got in late”, then had to get up at 2 for the drive to Madison. I asked where their early morning journey began? Eau Claire – 178 miles.

Judge Rules That Prosecutors Violated the rights of 16 KPMG Partners

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Peter Lattman:

Those who commit crimes – regardless of whether they wear white or blue collars – must be brought to justice. The government, however, has let its zeal get in the way of its judgment. It has violated the Constitution it is sworn to defend.

That’s the money quote in Judge Kaplan’s stunning 88-page opinion, in which he found that prosecutors violated the constitutional rights of a group of former KPMG partners by pressuring the firm not to pay their legal bills. We’re going to take the liberty of reprinting the opinion’s entire preamble, which contains remarkably clear, riveting writing:

More here, here and here.

Lattman further posts his views on the winners and losers via this ruling along with a roundup of other commentary.

Law Professor Linda Beale has a few words as well.