!080894 Patents plaguing medical procedures field For those in the software world complaining about software patents - you are not alone. It seems that the medical community is just as contentious as the software community, at least according to an article in today's Wall Street Journal. The issues are much the same, those in this case we are dealing with medical method patents - for example, a new surgical technique for removing gallstones, or as mentioned in the article, a new way of performing incisions for cataract operations that does not require stitches. Note that in many countries around the world, medical method patents are prohibited. On one side are the supporters of the incentive of successful innovation. "The critics want to have their cake and eat it too", says Roger Schechter, a law professor at George Washington University. "They believe that these new techniques should be freely available, without even considering that maybe [the techniques] wouldn't exist in the first place unless there was a patent to encourage them". On the other side, we have the commonwealthists. "Doctors have always shared information with one another because we feel that's the hallmark of a profession", says Lonnie Bristow, president-elect of the American Medical Association. "Our role isn't to secrete information away". Other critics argue that doctors have an ethical obligation to disseminate such innovations without charge. The AMA and other other medical groups have passed motions urging Congress to bar method patents. What makes this more interesting, especially compared to software patents, is that certain health management procedures makes it easier to detect patent infringement. Insurers, group practices and health maintenance organizations, for example, often have sophisticated systems for gathering data on procedures used by doctors. With medical practices increasingly being more businessy, it should be surprising, just like in software, that more patents are sought and awarded, and that patent infringement lawsuits become more common and more expensive to deal with. I suppose those involved with medical computer devices now have two reasons not to get up in the morning :-) Greg Aharonian Internet Patent News Service