Yesterday's New York Times ran an editorial about patenting cell lines, written by Michael Crichton. The ideas are also discussed in his new book "Next."
Is it possible for a company or a university to own your cell line, without your written permission and detailed consensual knowledge?
2007-02-14 03:27:36 · 3 answers · asked by Zelda Hunter 7 in Science & Mathematics ➔ Medicine
This is a questoin about your BIOLOGICAL CELL LINE not a phone line.
2007-02-14 03:49:21 · update #1
If you read his book, an example of someone not "owning his own cell line" is examined and scrutinized. But in the end, it is ruled that nobody but the occupant of the cells could possibly own their cell line. While patents are being placed on specific genes, there is no court in the world that would rule that a person does not own their own genes. If the person gives permission to a researcher to perform tests on their cells, they no longer have any say in what goes on with those cells, but the researcher does not have the right to all cells in the person's body or his children. But for the example in the book to actually happen, no judge would ever allow that to happen. And the more publicity the book gets (and crichton has done many public speeches on it) the more likely that all gene patents will be thrown out because as he puts it, genes are a product of nature, so if someone can own a gene, can they get a patent on trees? or water? or a certain rock? Of course not. And as soon as the government realizes they are all the same, the gene patents will no longer exist. So to answer your question...no
2007-02-14 08:31:08 · answer #1 · answered by wildcat_72069 3 · 1⤊ 0⤋
If the phone is provided by your employer, they own all the rights to the phone.
They can see how many calls you make and to whom. They can with most phones turn on gps tracking and tell exactly where you are at any time even if you are not at work.
They can NOT listen in to your phone calls with out a court order, which would be hard to get with involving the police, and would only happen if you were under investication of a crime.
2007-02-14 11:39:06 · answer #2 · answered by alanpks4 4 · 0⤊ 1⤋
yes, many years ago (30 i think) a person died of a tumour and a lab cultured it because it could divide eternally without losing vigour.
they sold portions of it (for profit) to other labs and the courts decided that his (i think) heirs could not share in those profits
2007-02-14 14:46:08 · answer #3 · answered by jamus d woespuss 4 · 0⤊ 1⤋