From: lwloen@rchland.vnet.ibm.com (Larry Loen)
Subject: Re: Public Key Patents
Date: Mon, 23 Nov 1992 19:54:20 GMT
Reply-To: lwloen@vnet.ibm.com
Disclaimer: This posting represents the poster's views, not necessarily those of IBM
Organization: IBM Rochester

In article <1992Nov23.165703.21735@cas.org>, jac54@cas.org () writes:
|> In article <1992Nov23.011349.11673@netcom.com> rlglende@netcom.com (Robert Lewis Glendenning) writes:
|> >I believe that Fleming made the patent for penicillin public, which delayed
|> >development for many years.  No drug company wanted to invest the $
|> >on development and clinical testing when anybody else could ride on
|> >the investment and undercut their prices.  A sure route to bankruptcy.
|> >
|> >This is a system design issue.  You guys are argueing about waves,
|> >not wave-generation mechanisms.
|> >
|> 
|> 	Of course he made the patent public.  A patent is a public
|> 	record of an invention.  The claims describe an invention
|> 	over which the inventor has the right to prevent anyone else
|> 	practicing and therefore have to publicly described.
|> 	The reason for the delay in the commercial development of
|> 	penicillin was more likely the very mixed set of clinical
|> 	trials.
|> 
|> 	Alec Chambers


I remember a very good Nova episode on this topic.  Apparently, while
Fleming clearly _discovered_ penicillin, he was not inclined to pursue
it as the medical cure it has now become.  Whether it occurred to him
or not, I don't know, but in any event, he had little or nothing to
do with its commercial development.

Indeed, the one thing that was continually emphasized in the special was
the tremendous (initial, anyway) difficulties in getting penicillin
produced on anything like a mass scale.  It was a laboratory curiousity
for some time even after its medical value was finally appreciated.

One reason the early clinical
trials may have been mixed was the necessity to do things like reclaim
the precious drug from the urine of the test subjects.

Indeed, I once read a suggestion that penicillin allergies were far less
widespread than believed and have gone down as the drug's purity has
improved over the years.  That is to say, many people who carry "allergic
to penicillin on their medic alert bracelets may well be allergic to 
impurities in older forms of the drug.  But, whether this was in one of 
my wife's nursing journals or the tabloid press, I can't recall.

So, the most important patents were probably not Fleming's anyway; it 
was any of the patents involved in making a "go" of it in commercial
quantities.  I remember that the other fellows who did the yeoman's work
in making it practical were almost ignored and they and Fleming did not
get along well in later years, but I don't remember them arguing about
patents.  Or, does someone else remember the show better?

I don't think penicillin is a very good test case for the point trying to
be made.  A very messy example all around.  Or, perhaps good for the same
reason?  :-)

-- 
   Larry W. Loen        |  My Opinions are decidedly my own, so please
                        |  do not attribute them to my employer
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