From owner-chemistry@ccl.net Mon Feb 27 18:58:01 2006 From: "Mike Gilson gilson__verachem.com" To: CCL Subject: CCL: patents in computational chemistry and cheminformatics Message-Id: <-31023-060227173732-25064-n/neTkqthkc5jxkRZn0YuQ^-^server.ccl.net> X-Original-From: "Mike Gilson" Date: Mon, 27 Feb 2006 17:37:24 -0500 Sent to CCL by: "Mike Gilson" [gilson .. verachem.com] Since this discussion begin with a discussion of a patent application with my name on it, here are my 2-3 cents! > Anyone who has experience with software pattents in cheminformatics, > computational chemistry and the likes? Patents are actually quite common in this area: go to the US Patent Office search site (http://patft.uspto.gov/netahtml/search-bool.html)and search for "accelrys", "tripos", "generalized born", "protein-ligand docking", for example. You'll find patents from both companies and universities. > If there were a repository for software that is in a public place, like > a scientific journal (e.g. JCC or JCTC), where one could upload new > versions of the code (together with a one-page description of the software) > then there would be a public track-record of software that can be > used in patent-cases as proof of prior art. Patenting the obvious or the known is definitely a problem in the US. The patent examiners seem to check for prior art only in their databases of prior patents. They don't look at the literature or the marketplace. Unfortunately, they probably also would not look in a software repository. > There is prior art for the method described, for example,the Qeq method of Goddard and Rappe. Like pretty much every other patent, this one builds on the work of others, and is patentable only insofar as it goes beyond what has been done in the past. Best regards, Mike