Tuesday, March 16, 2010

Patents in Cryonics

Recently, Steve Harris tried to impress me, (or maybe other readers of the "Cold Filter" cryonics forum), by stating he holds a "novel propofol formulation patent in several countries, with more to come." Apparently, Harris has not paid attention to my previous posts, regarding patents. If a person was to tell me they held one hundred patents, without being able to prove any of their patented items had been successfully marketed, all they would have convinced me of is that they, (or someone funding their activities), had spent a whole lot of money. Just about anybody willing to spend the money, could hold any number of "novel formulation" patents, but that wouldn't mean any of them were safe, effective, worthy of FDA-approval, or marketable. While the people funding cryonics activities may find the issuance of patents impressive, I don't. Most patents are worthless. When Harris comes back with proof his patented propofol formulation has received FDA-approval and is being marketed by a major pharmaceutical company, then I'll be impressed. Other than the inventors, (whose activities have been funded by LEF and/or Alcor), and maybe some patent attorneys, has anyone ever made a penny off of any of the patents related to the activities of cryonics organizations?

Hopefully, Harris et. al.'s laboratory work isn't as sloppy as one of their patent recent applications:
http://www.wipo.int/pctdb/en/wo.jspWO=2009042220&IA=US2008011224&DISPLAY=DESC
In this particular application, there were numerous very careless errors, which I spotted the first time I read it. For example, they were "induc(ing)hyperthermia in order to decrease mammalian temperature..." ("Inducing hyperthermia" means warming, not cooling.) I understand typos, but for a Harris' group to submit a patent application in which they consistently confused the terms for heating and cooling, is beyond sloppy. Glaringly obvious, careless mistakes, such as those, make it appear as though no one bothered to review the document, before it was submitted and published on the Internet. I wrote more about it, here:
http://www.network54.com/Forum/291677/message/1257168041/Sloppy+Patent+Work+-+Critical+Care+Research

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