Patents are of enormous practical importance to the biotech industry. In addition, the development of a legal framework for patenting living organisms or related materials has taken up a significant amount of space in historians’ analyses of the biotech industry in the US and elsewhere in the world. But it’s important to remember that patents do not function in a vacuum — without the funds and legal means to defend it, a patent is not worth much. Bob Franza, CSHL scientist and co-founder of Protein Databases, Inc., explains:
Bob Franza, interviewed via Zoom on June 23, 2023
Interviewer: Antoinette Sutto
Bob: I know because I have a few and I’ve helped a whole bunch of other people get them. But in today’s world, it’s not just the cost of getting a patent issued, it’s the reality that you have to have all the money it takes to defend your patents from infringement. It’s not just an issue of getting an issued patent. That’s an illusion. It’s doing that in the context of then being able to practice the art yourself and keep other people out until they have a license. It’s a much bigger deal.
Interviewer: That’s interesting. Often you read about, oh, suddenly there’s that Chakrabarty case from 1980 about how suddenly you can patent microorganisms. A lot of people describe it as though suddenly after that there was this pivot to patenting everything. In reality, the process was quite different. It sounds like, in terms of like, “Do we need to patent this? Why would we do that? Is that not– Like this idea of our information should be free, why would we try to patent it?” Then what you described about like, “The patent is not enough. You have to have a whole apparatus behind it.”
Bob: You have to have an apparatus, I can assure you. Two of my patents were infringed. The apparatus I had behind me was the attorney general’s office in the state of Washington. No problem.
Interviewer: No, that’ll work. That’s something through U. W. [University of Washington] then.
Bob: Even with that, it took me two and a half years to convince the intellectual property office at the University of Washington that the patents were being infringed. When they finally were convinced, the state AG’s office stepped in and the university collected over a period of about 12 years, a nice little chunk of change. It takes that muscle. There’s no point in getting a patent if you’re not in a position to defend it.”