Gene patenting ruled illegal

[tvashtarkatena]

For the first time in the 20 years since the issue first came up, a federal district court has ruled that human genes may not be patented.

 

Go....

[tvashtarkatena]

This is one issue, the erosion of privacy is another, where we need not accept either the status quo nor current trends, despite how many talking heads tell us how irrelevant our values and beliefs are.

[Stonehead]

Everything depends on the context in which the issue is raised. I agree with your views if the context falls under the rubric of measuring the immense power of corporate control over the individual and under the function of the law to provide protections for the public against that inequity. It’s the issue of concentration of power unchecked, whether corporations should be able to monopolize genetic information for private gain over public benefit.

 

On the other hand, if the issue is couched in terms of the larger collective, e.g., public safety/public health versus individual liberties or specialized interests then it doesn’t seem so black and white. For it to be this well distinguished, you’d have to take the assumption that the government is the best guarantor of the public’s welfare. [This is supposed to be their function albeit in limited fashion, so that the benefactor does not grow uncontrollably into beneficiary.]

 

And so, at first read, it seems that government is performing that function of summum bonum although I reserve the right to speak out if that body becomes corrupted. Call me cynical but in reference to that stated assumption, I don’t always see it as remaining so (but props to you for being involved in an organization that serves as at least one independent check though I don’t always agree with their actions).

 

But here’s what I see happening: dissent is being blackballed. You’re lumped and labeled as an accessory to domestic terrorism if you dissent from the prevailing authority. It was bad enough under the Bush administration but it’s beginning to appear that erosion of privacy will not lessen under the Obama presidency. Welcome to the new happiness.

 

My question under a number of topics is whether questioning legitimacy of action or purpose is as much a threat as it’s perceived to be. Since when does nonviolent speech become identified as a direct threat to authority? As I understand, these challenges are separate manifestations of something similar to what could amount to a national referendum. In particular, one of these challenges in the guise of the idea of nullification follows the principle of conscience over law. Is merely raising awareness of that idea a punishable offense? Is the law the supreme arbiter of social justice?

 

[tvashtarkatena]

What the hell does any of that have to do with gene patents?

[Stonehead]

“The industry is going to have to get more creative about how to retain exclusivity and attract capital in the face of potentially weaker patent protection,” he said.

 

Edward Reines, a patent lawyer who represents biotechnology firms but was not involved in the case, said loss of patent protection could diminish the incentives for genetic research.

 

“The government is going to become the funder for content discovery because it’s going to be very hard to justify it outside of academia.”

Judge Invalidates Human Gene Patent--NYT

 

Granted, it's not a constitutional issue but merely one involving patent law and intellectual property.

 

You tell me if government will always to be the best guarantor of our welfare.

 

[ivan]

every fucker i ever met named gene turned out to be a real choade

 

 

[Off_White]

Govt funded research and information in the public domain beats the corporate fuck-you-for-a-buck proprietary model any day. Knowledge is not expanded by investigating how to make money on something, rather money gets made on spin off information from basic research. Corporations do not engage in basic research.

[mkporwit]

Corporations do not engage in basic research.

Umm, yeah, they still do. To a much lesser degree than they used to, but they still do. While the scientific community justly mourns the demise of Bell Labs or DEC Research, you can be sure that companies such as IBM still engage in pie-in-the-sky, what-if, Nobel-prize-potential research.

 

Having said that, sure, more could be done: Good article

Edited April 4, 2010 by mkporwit

[tvashtarkatena]

Private companies partnering with public research facilities seems to be today's most common model for basic research.

[JayB]

Govt funded research and information in the public domain beats the corporate fuck-you-for-a-buck proprietary model any day. Knowledge is not expanded by investigating how to make money on something, rather money gets made on spin off information from basic research. Corporations do not engage in basic research.

 

I'm not personally convinced that the public good that ultimately arises from of a particular innovation is determined by the motives of the person who invented it, or the context in which it's invented.

 

A quick survey of the past reveals alchemists who laid the foundation for chemistry while searching for a way to transmute base metals into gold in the middle ages, folks like Edison and Tesla working in the private sector, and guys Jack Kilby, who invented the integrated circuit while working at Texas intstruments.

 

Even in the biological sciences, two of the more consequential discoveries that I can think of in the past thirty years came out of commercial enterprises. Kary Mullis developed the Polymerase Chain Reaction while working at an outfit called Cetus in 1983. The observations that lead to the discovery of RNA-interference came from a guy trying to modify pigment expression in petunias while working at an outfit called "DNA Plant Technology Corp." It's difficult to overstate the impact that these discoveries have had on basic research in the life sciences - and both emerged from research conducted in service of whatever grubby little private motives inspired the creation of each for profit company.

 

Once you move from the abstract considerations of motives and into the concrete realm of how things get discovered and the beneficial impact that they have on the world - it becomes very difficult to square that with the idea that research undertaken in for profit is always grasping and trivial. It's the rough equivalent of claiming that only music, literature, theater, sculpture, etc, etc, produced with government funding on a strict non-profit basis, with public motives in mind can really benefit mankind.

 

 

 

 

 

[prole]

 

Meanwhile...

 

Contesting Jobless Claims Becomes a Boom Industry

 

WASHINGTON — With a client list that reads like a roster of Fortune 500 firms, a little-known company with an odd name, the Talx Corporation, has come to dominate a thriving industry: helping employers process — and fight — unemployment claims.

 

Talx, which emerged from obscurity over the last eight years, says it handles more than 30 percent of the nation’s requests for jobless benefits. Pledging to save employers money in part by contesting claims, Talx helps them decide which applications to resist and how to mount effective appeals.

 

The work has made Talx a boom business in a bust economy, but critics say the company has undermined a crucial safety net. Officials in a number of states have called Talx a chronic source of error and delay. Advocates for the unemployed say the company seeks to keep jobless workers from collecting benefits.

 

“Talx often files appeals regardless of merits,” said Jonathan P. Baird, a lawyer at New Hampshire Legal Assistance. “It’s sort of a war of attrition. If you appeal a certain percentage of cases, there are going to be those workers who give up.”

 

When fewer former workers get aid, a company pays lower unemployment taxes.

 

Wisconsin and Iowa passed laws to curtail procedural abuses that officials said were common in cases handled by Talx. Connecticut fined Talx (pronounced talks) and demanded an end to baseless appeals. New York, without naming Talx, instructed the Labor Department staff to side with workers in cases that simply pit their word against those of agents for employers.

 

Talx officials say they have been unfairly blamed for situations caused by tight deadlines, confusing state rules or uncooperative employers. Talx cannot submit information about idled workers, they say, until clients give it to them. They say Talx improves the system’s efficiency by mastering the complexities of 50 state programs, allowing employers to focus on their businesses.

 

“We can speed the whole process, rather than bog it down,” said Michael E. Smith, a senior Talx executive. “The whole idea is to protect those employees who have lost their job through no fault of their own and make sure they get unemployment insurance.”

 

Mr. Smith said employers, not Talx, controlled decisions about which cases to contest. “We just do what the client asks us to do and leave it to the state to decide,” he said.

 

Advocates for the unemployed cite cases like that of Gerald Grenier, 47, who spent four years as a night janitor at a New Hampshire Wal-Mart and was fired for pocketing several dollars in coins from a vending machine. Mr. Grenier, who is mentally disabled, told Wal-Mart he forgot to turn in the change. Talx, representing Wal-Mart, accused him of misconduct and fought his unemployment claim.

 

After Mr. Grenier waited three months for a hearing, Wal-Mart did not appear. A Talx agent joined by phone, then seemingly hung up as Mr. Grenier testified. The hearing officer redialed and left an unanswered message on the agent’s voice mail. The officer called Mr. Grenier “completely credible” and granted him benefits.

 

Talx appealed, claiming that the officer had denied the agent’s request to let Wal-Mart testify by phone. (A recording of the hearing contains no such request.) Mr. Grenier won the appeal, but by then he had lost his apartment and moved in with his sister.

 

“That was a nightmare,” he said.

 

In the case of Dina Griess, Talx and its client, the subprime lender Countrywide Financial, were involved in what a judge deemed an outright fraud. Ms. Griess worked for Countrywide outside Boston and quit as it collapsed in 2008, saying she was distressed by internal investigations of lending practices. People can receive unemployment benefits if they quit for “good cause,” like unsafe working conditions, but Talx argued that Ms. Griess’s reason did not meet the legal standard.

 

She won benefits at a hearing that Talx and Countrywide skipped, but Talx successfully appealed, saying the Countrywide witness had missed the hearing because of a family death. Later asked under oath if that was true, the witness said, “No, it’s not.”

 

A Massachusetts judge reviewing the case, Robert A. Cornetta of Salem District Court, denounced the deceit and gave Ms. Griess benefits. “The court will not be party to a fraud,” he said.

 

Despite the large role that Talx and other agents play in a program that spent $120 billion last year, the federal Department of Labor has done little to measure their impact.

 

Talx, which is based in St. Louis, declined to make clients available for interviews, citing pledges of confidentiality, and none of those contacted chose to comment. Other major employers that have used Talx include Aetna, AT&T, Best Buy, FedEx, Home Depot, Marriott, McDonald’s and the United States Postal Service. (The New York Times uses Talx for a different service, to answer inquiries from lenders about its employees’ earnings.)

 

Talx entered the field brashly, buying the industry’s two largest companies on a single day in 2002. In the next few years, it bought five more. Until then, Talx had never handled an unemployment claim, and skeptics wondered how well it could blend seven companies in an unfamiliar industry.

 

The Federal Trade Commission argued in a 2008 antitrust complaint that the acquisitions, which cost $230 million, had allowed Talx to “raise prices unilaterally” and “decrease the quality of services.” Talx modified some contracts to settle the case, but admitted no legal violations.

 

Financially, the gamble paid off: Talx was acquired three years ago by Equifax, the credit-rating giant, for $1.4 billion. But work once done locally became centralized — at a loss, critics say, of responsiveness and expertise.

 

Wisconsin officials were among the first to complain, passing a law in 2005 to prevent what they called a common Talx practice: failing to respond to requests for information, only to appeal when workers got benefits. That clogged the appeals docket and drained the benefits fund, since money sent to ineligible workers was hard to get back.

 

While the law brought about quicker participation, said Hal Bergan, the state’s unemployment insurance administrator, the company’s overall speed and accuracy “still leaves something to be desired.”

 

Indeed, years of e-mail messages, obtained through an open records law, show a continually exasperated Wisconsin staff. While a few cited improved performance, others complained that Talx “returned half-empty questionnaires,” sent back “minimal or ‘junk’ info,” reported in error that applicants were dead, filed “frivolous protests” and caused “the holdup of many claims.”

 

“Same problems as always,” wrote Amy Banicki, a senior manager, in a 2008 e-mail message. “Talx is Talx.”

 

Iowa passed a similar law in 2008 to curtail unnecessary appeals. Of the 10 employers who most often appealed after failing to respond to data requests, officials said nine were represented by Talx, including Cargill, Target, Tyson Foods, Wal-Mart and Wells Fargo.

 

Connecticut cited “frivolous motions” and “unnecessary delays” in filing a complaint against Talx under a law that regulates employer agents. Without admitting fault, Talx paid a $12,000 fine and agreed to tell clients in writing that it would not file baseless appeals.

 

While there is no comprehensive research, the Labor Department did an internal study of 2,000 cases in 2007 and found Talx significantly slower and less complete in answering auditors’ questions than employers who handled their own claims. Officials said they did not release the study, which drew on seven states, because they could not ensure it was representative. The New York Times obtained it under the Freedom of Information Act.

 

Talx supporters say the program’s tight deadlines often give Talx just a few days to answer requests. They emphasize that Talx is working with states to develop a common computer format that will help provide the data more rapidly. They also say scrutiny of claims by companies like Talx helps deter fraud.

 

“Increased vigilance is an appropriate thing,” said Douglas J. Holmes, president of UWC, a Washington group that represents employers on unemployment issues. “Integrity is important.”

 

But others say that Talx, by promising to save clients money, has an incentive to fight even legitimate claims. In marketing materials, it warns employers that “a single claim can result in a higher tax rate” and makes the promise that “we deliver increased winning percentages.”

 

Joseph Walsh, deputy director of Iowa’s employment security agency, said, “We are more likely to see a claim of misconduct that is completely unsupported by the factual record” when agents are involved.

 

Officials in the New York State Department of Labor were so concerned last year about the credibility of agents that they warned staff members against taking their word over that of jobless workers. Absent other evidence, the officials wrote, “give greater weight to the claimant’s statement.”

 

That guidance was relevant in the case of Genssy Frias, a Bronx woman who took a maternity leave from a sales job at Lord & Taylor. Ms. Frias said that she tried to return but that her supervisor told her she had been laid off. A Talx agent said Ms. Frias quit because she lacked child care.

 

“We did not hear from her again,” the agent wrote.

 

New York canceled Ms. Frias’s benefits and accused her of lying.

 

In an interview, Ms. Frias said the agent’s response to the state was not only inaccurate but also deceitful, because she did not disclose that she worked for Talx and implied first-hand knowledge by using the pronoun “we.” Had she identified herself as an agent, officials would have given her statement less weight.

 

A Talx spokeswoman said the agent made a clerical error in writing “we” and called it an isolated incident. Lord & Taylor did not respond to requests for comment.

 

Ms. Frias appealed and presented a baby sitter’s note, which vouched that she had arranged for child care. Neither Talx nor Lord & Taylor appeared at the hearing, and Ms. Frias won.

 

“I was thinking, how can they lie like that when they know I didn’t quit?” Ms. Frias said. -- NYT 4/3/10

[tvashtarkatena]

You can't patent human DNA, but you could, until this decision, patent a gene; something that is not invented and that already exists in nature. you can't patent a newly discovered species, but you can a newly discovered, not invented, gene. Go figure.

 

The patenting process is for invention, not identification. Patenting a therapy is great, patenting a way to identify genes is great, patenting the gene itself is hogwash.

 

The fear that this will slow research is probably crap. The incentives for chasing after gene therapies are so enormous and lucrative that this won't even represent a minor hiccup. Rather, it will likely increase the pace of innovation by reducing the proprietary nature of this research.

 

Funny that the integrated circuit was mentioned. A company that maintains a long term monopoly on a genetic test (due to gene patents) that is priced so high as to prevent most folks from getting it effectively maximizes overall health care costs down the road by acting as too tight a gate...much like an economic transistor. Much better to ease off on the filtering a bit and allow all willing research groups to come up with a cheapest, most accessible test possible.

Edited April 4, 2010 by tvashtarkatena

[genepires]

I am a choade and I don't want to be patented.

Edited April 4, 2010 by genepires

[JayB]

You can't patent human DNA, but you could, until this decision, patent a gene; something that is not invented and that already exists in nature. you can't patent a newly discovered species, but you can a newly discovered, not invented, gene. Go figure.

 

The patenting process is for invention, not identification. Patenting a therapy is great, patenting a way to identify genes is great, patenting the gene itself is hogwash.

 

The fear that this will slow research is probably crap. The incentives for chasing after gene therapies are so enormous and lucrative that this won't even represent a minor hiccup. Rather, it will likely increase the pace of innovation by reducing the proprietary nature of this research.

 

Funny that the integrated circuit was mentioned. A company that maintains a long term monopoly on a genetic test (due to gene patents) that is priced so high as to prevent most folks from getting it effectively maximizes overall health care costs down the road by acting as too tight a gate...much like an economic transistor. Much better to ease off on the filtering a bit and allow all willing research groups to come up with a cheapest, most accessible test possible.

 

I mostly agree with you about the idea of patenting a gene, but I have to confess that I don't have a precise idea of what it means to patent a gene, much less whether or not allowing anyone to do so will help or hinder efforts to increase our understanding of the natural world, develop therapeutics, etc.

 

I've read what seem like reasonable arguments on both sides of the issue, but until I get some more time to read up on this particular case my default judgment is that it makes sense to allow private parties to patent useful ways to exploit the information contained in natural genes but not the genes themselves.

 

When it comes to the question of whether or not patents promote or discourage discovery in general, I have a harder time drawing a line. You can isolate a particular kind of DNA using cesium-chloride and a centrifuge that's much, much more labor and energy intensive, and produces more toxic byproducts - or you can buy a kit with patent protected elements that's dramatically faster, easier, cleaner, and safer.

 

A lab that uses the kits will be able to spend more time engaged in discovery and far less time and money in the tedious process of isolating DNA and, all things being equal, has a better shot at discovering something new and significant. But - a greater percentage of their research money will wind-up in the pockets of the company that developed the patents. To me, the patent related expenses seem like a small price to pay for making the process of scientific discovery faster, easier, and less costly.

 

I'm sure there's a point at which patent protections cross a threshold and inhibit discovery, efficiency, etc and make everyone else worse off. Where's the line? Tough to tell.

[tvashtarkatena]

I have no problem with patents in general. Their value depends on the value of what they're protecting and its corresponding competitive environment. Most are a waste of money, of course, but every now and then they provide either a deterrent or sanction against copycatting, which is, of course, rampant.

 

I used to work for Fluke (electronic test tools) as a design engineer. Like any good design department, we regularly dissected competing products. We dissected on Asian made product (outsourced by a US company) and found that they copied our design to such an extent that they even included those injection molding design errors we'd deemed too minor to fix. One of our reps went to an Asian trade show and they had the copied multimeter there, complete with our manuals, printed by us...only with stickers printed with their company logo literally glued over the top of our logo wherever it appeared.

 

We sued, won, and barred them from selling that product in the US. International protection? Yeah, good luck with that. It's hard to say whether such a sanction was worth it, given the time, effort, and cost of the suit. The deterrent value for future encroachment was probably worth more than the sanction itself.

 

It's often not hard to circumvent many utility patents, particularly if they're not well written, and even if there is a little encroachment the cost of suit usually prohibits pursuing all but the most blatant cases.

 

Most patents are minor perks for the folks named on them, and not much more.

[Mal_Con]

Patents are how I make my living. I do high tech mostly semiconductors and software. No bio tech, never really understood how they got to cover genes as naturally occurring things were traditionally considered nonstatutory material even if discovered (never underestimate the lobbying power of big pharma). Much of the pharma research is on how to avoid the claims of others patents.

[Stonehead]

Well, it seems one major point of contention, the so called lawyer's trick, is whether “isolated" (purified) DNA is the same as DNA which occurs in a form found in nature.

 

Foaming at the Mouth: The Inane Ruling in the Gene Patents Case

 

Court: Essentially All Gene Patents Are Invalid

 

Check out the comments section in both articles.

[Mal_Con]

On 60 minutes right now.

[JayB]

Well, it seems one major point of contention, the so called lawyer's trick, is whether “isolated" (purified) DNA is the same as DNA which occurs in a form found in nature.

 

Foaming at the Mouth: The Inane Ruling in the Gene Patents Case

 

Court: Essentially All Gene Patents Are Invalid

 

Check out the comments section in both articles.

 

Great links. A quick perusal suggests that the basic issues in play are more subtle than the term "gene patenting" brings to mind for most of us.

 

Sounds like there's a new standard for "prior art" that came into play after the human genome was published that would make it tough to make commercial claims based on primarily on the isolation/identification of specific sequence data after that date? If that's correct that alone would probably address most of the concerns that come to mind when most people see the words "gene" and "patent" adjacent to one another.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[JayB]

Meanwhile...

 

Contesting Jobless Claims Becomes a Boom Industry

 

WASHINGTON — With a client list that reads like a roster of Fortune 500 firms, a little-known company with an odd name, the Talx Corporation, has come to dominate a thriving industry: helping employers process — and fight — unemployment claims.

 

Talx, which emerged from obscurity over the last eight years, says it handles more than 30 percent of the nation’s requests for jobless benefits. Pledging to save employers money in part by contesting claims, Talx helps them decide which applications to resist and how to mount effective appeals.

 

The work has made Talx a boom business in a bust economy, but critics say the company has undermined a crucial safety net. Officials in a number of states have called Talx a chronic source of error and delay. Advocates for the unemployed say the company seeks to keep jobless workers from collecting benefits.

 

“Talx often files appeals regardless of merits,” said Jonathan P. Baird, a lawyer at New Hampshire Legal Assistance. “It’s sort of a war of attrition. If you appeal a certain percentage of cases, there are going to be those workers who give up.”

 

When fewer former workers get aid, a company pays lower unemployment taxes.

 

Wisconsin and Iowa passed laws to curtail procedural abuses that officials said were common in cases handled by Talx. Connecticut fined Talx (pronounced talks) and demanded an end to baseless appeals. New York, without naming Talx, instructed the Labor Department staff to side with workers in cases that simply pit their word against those of agents for employers.

 

Talx officials say they have been unfairly blamed for situations caused by tight deadlines, confusing state rules or uncooperative employers. Talx cannot submit information about idled workers, they say, until clients give it to them. They say Talx improves the system’s efficiency by mastering the complexities of 50 state programs, allowing employers to focus on their businesses.

 

“We can speed the whole process, rather than bog it down,” said Michael E. Smith, a senior Talx executive. “The whole idea is to protect those employees who have lost their job through no fault of their own and make sure they get unemployment insurance.”

 

Mr. Smith said employers, not Talx, controlled decisions about which cases to contest. “We just do what the client asks us to do and leave it to the state to decide,” he said.

 

Advocates for the unemployed cite cases like that of Gerald Grenier, 47, who spent four years as a night janitor at a New Hampshire Wal-Mart and was fired for pocketing several dollars in coins from a vending machine. Mr. Grenier, who is mentally disabled, told Wal-Mart he forgot to turn in the change. Talx, representing Wal-Mart, accused him of misconduct and fought his unemployment claim.

 

After Mr. Grenier waited three months for a hearing, Wal-Mart did not appear. A Talx agent joined by phone, then seemingly hung up as Mr. Grenier testified. The hearing officer redialed and left an unanswered message on the agent’s voice mail. The officer called Mr. Grenier “completely credible” and granted him benefits.

 

Talx appealed, claiming that the officer had denied the agent’s request to let Wal-Mart testify by phone. (A recording of the hearing contains no such request.) Mr. Grenier won the appeal, but by then he had lost his apartment and moved in with his sister.

 

“That was a nightmare,” he said.

 

In the case of Dina Griess, Talx and its client, the subprime lender Countrywide Financial, were involved in what a judge deemed an outright fraud. Ms. Griess worked for Countrywide outside Boston and quit as it collapsed in 2008, saying she was distressed by internal investigations of lending practices. People can receive unemployment benefits if they quit for “good cause,” like unsafe working conditions, but Talx argued that Ms. Griess’s reason did not meet the legal standard.

 

She won benefits at a hearing that Talx and Countrywide skipped, but Talx successfully appealed, saying the Countrywide witness had missed the hearing because of a family death. Later asked under oath if that was true, the witness said, “No, it’s not.”

 

A Massachusetts judge reviewing the case, Robert A. Cornetta of Salem District Court, denounced the deceit and gave Ms. Griess benefits. “The court will not be party to a fraud,” he said.

 

Despite the large role that Talx and other agents play in a program that spent $120 billion last year, the federal Department of Labor has done little to measure their impact.

 

Talx, which is based in St. Louis, declined to make clients available for interviews, citing pledges of confidentiality, and none of those contacted chose to comment. Other major employers that have used Talx include Aetna, AT&T, Best Buy, FedEx, Home Depot, Marriott, McDonald’s and the United States Postal Service. (The New York Times uses Talx for a different service, to answer inquiries from lenders about its employees’ earnings.)

 

Talx entered the field brashly, buying the industry’s two largest companies on a single day in 2002. In the next few years, it bought five more. Until then, Talx had never handled an unemployment claim, and skeptics wondered how well it could blend seven companies in an unfamiliar industry.

 

The Federal Trade Commission argued in a 2008 antitrust complaint that the acquisitions, which cost $230 million, had allowed Talx to “raise prices unilaterally” and “decrease the quality of services.” Talx modified some contracts to settle the case, but admitted no legal violations.

 

Financially, the gamble paid off: Talx was acquired three years ago by Equifax, the credit-rating giant, for $1.4 billion. But work once done locally became centralized — at a loss, critics say, of responsiveness and expertise.

 

Wisconsin officials were among the first to complain, passing a law in 2005 to prevent what they called a common Talx practice: failing to respond to requests for information, only to appeal when workers got benefits. That clogged the appeals docket and drained the benefits fund, since money sent to ineligible workers was hard to get back.

 

While the law brought about quicker participation, said Hal Bergan, the state’s unemployment insurance administrator, the company’s overall speed and accuracy “still leaves something to be desired.”

 

Indeed, years of e-mail messages, obtained through an open records law, show a continually exasperated Wisconsin staff. While a few cited improved performance, others complained that Talx “returned half-empty questionnaires,” sent back “minimal or ‘junk’ info,” reported in error that applicants were dead, filed “frivolous protests” and caused “the holdup of many claims.”

 

“Same problems as always,” wrote Amy Banicki, a senior manager, in a 2008 e-mail message. “Talx is Talx.”

 

Iowa passed a similar law in 2008 to curtail unnecessary appeals. Of the 10 employers who most often appealed after failing to respond to data requests, officials said nine were represented by Talx, including Cargill, Target, Tyson Foods, Wal-Mart and Wells Fargo.

 

Connecticut cited “frivolous motions” and “unnecessary delays” in filing a complaint against Talx under a law that regulates employer agents. Without admitting fault, Talx paid a $12,000 fine and agreed to tell clients in writing that it would not file baseless appeals.

 

While there is no comprehensive research, the Labor Department did an internal study of 2,000 cases in 2007 and found Talx significantly slower and less complete in answering auditors’ questions than employers who handled their own claims. Officials said they did not release the study, which drew on seven states, because they could not ensure it was representative. The New York Times obtained it under the Freedom of Information Act.

 

Talx supporters say the program’s tight deadlines often give Talx just a few days to answer requests. They emphasize that Talx is working with states to develop a common computer format that will help provide the data more rapidly. They also say scrutiny of claims by companies like Talx helps deter fraud.

 

“Increased vigilance is an appropriate thing,” said Douglas J. Holmes, president of UWC, a Washington group that represents employers on unemployment issues. “Integrity is important.”

 

But others say that Talx, by promising to save clients money, has an incentive to fight even legitimate claims. In marketing materials, it warns employers that “a single claim can result in a higher tax rate” and makes the promise that “we deliver increased winning percentages.”

 

Joseph Walsh, deputy director of Iowa’s employment security agency, said, “We are more likely to see a claim of misconduct that is completely unsupported by the factual record” when agents are involved.

 

Officials in the New York State Department of Labor were so concerned last year about the credibility of agents that they warned staff members against taking their word over that of jobless workers. Absent other evidence, the officials wrote, “give greater weight to the claimant’s statement.”

 

That guidance was relevant in the case of Genssy Frias, a Bronx woman who took a maternity leave from a sales job at Lord & Taylor. Ms. Frias said that she tried to return but that her supervisor told her she had been laid off. A Talx agent said Ms. Frias quit because she lacked child care.

 

“We did not hear from her again,” the agent wrote.

 

New York canceled Ms. Frias’s benefits and accused her of lying.

 

In an interview, Ms. Frias said the agent’s response to the state was not only inaccurate but also deceitful, because she did not disclose that she worked for Talx and implied first-hand knowledge by using the pronoun “we.” Had she identified herself as an agent, officials would have given her statement less weight.

 

A Talx spokeswoman said the agent made a clerical error in writing “we” and called it an isolated incident. Lord & Taylor did not respond to requests for comment.

 

Ms. Frias appealed and presented a baby sitter’s note, which vouched that she had arranged for child care. Neither Talx nor Lord & Taylor appeared at the hearing, and Ms. Frias won.

 

“I was thinking, how can they lie like that when they know I didn’t quit?” Ms. Frias said. -- NYT 4/3/10

 

Eeek. Science!

 

This more your style?

 

"Transgressing the Boundaries: Towards a

Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum

Gravity.

 

There are many natural scientists, and especially physicists, who continue to reject the notion that the disciplines concerned with social and cultural criticism can have anything to contribute, except perhaps peripherally, to their research. Still less are they receptive to the idea that the very foundations of their worldview must be revised or rebuilt in the light of such criticism. Rather, they cling to the dogma imposed by the long post-Enlightenment hegemony over the Western intellectual

outlook, which can be summarized briefly as follows: that there exists an external world, whose properties are independent of any individual human being and indeed of humanity as a whole; that

these properties are encoded in ``eternal'' physical laws; and that human beings can obtain reliable, albeit imperfect and tentative, knowledge of these laws by hewing to the ``objective'' procedures and epistemological strictures prescribed by the (so-called) scientific method.

 

But deep conceptual shifts within twentieth-century science have undermined this Cartesian-Newtonian metaphysics1; revisionist studies in the history and philosophy of science have cast further doubt on its credibility2; and, most recently, feminist and poststructuralist critiques have demystified the substantive content of mainstream Western scientific practice, revealing the ideologyof domination concealed behind the façade of ``objectivity''.3

 

It has thus become increasingly apparent that physical ``reality'', no less than social ``reality'', is at bottom a social and linguistic construct; that scientific ``knowledge", far from being objective, reflects and encodes the dominant ideologies and power relations of the culture that produced it; that the truth claims of science are inherently theory-laden and self-referential; and consequently, that the discourse of the scientific community, for all its undeniable value, cannot assert a privileged epistemological status with respect to counter-hegemonic narratives emanating from dissident or marginalized communities."

 

http://compbio.chemistry.uq.edu.au/mediawiki/upload/f/f9/Sokal-transgressing-boundaries.pdf

 

 

 

[Rad]

Govt funded research and information in the public domain beats the corporate fuck-you-for-a-buck proprietary model any day. Knowledge is not expanded by investigating how to make money on something, rather money gets made on spin off information from basic research. Corporations do not engage in basic research.

 

OW, I respectfully disagree. The Bayh-Dole Act of 1980 enabled universities and other institutions to take title (own) inventions arising from federally funded research. The result was the genesis of the biotech industry and a flow of technologies from academia to the private sector, with revenues relating to those inventions tracking back to universities and the inventors. This has had a big benefit for Universities, including the UW.

 

Implicit in your comment is the presumption that we would all be better if ideas went into the public domain. Actually, that's probably not the case in many areas. In short, patents grant a limited term monopoly (ability to exclude others) in exchange for teaching the world how to practice the invention. Without this incentive, companies would never invest the large amounts of money needed to turn cool ideas into working products. Without patents, there would be no new pharmaceuticals and no subsequent generic pharmaceuticals when the patents run out. We could go on and on...laws relating to patenting of inventions go right back to our US Constitution.

 

See also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayh%E2%80%93Dole_Act

[Jim]

The ruling does not afffect patents on processes, drugs, or new newly developed genes. It merely says that a firm cannot lay claim to a patent on an existing gene. In this case the firm isolated the defective gene sequence for congenital breast cancer. Rather than lay claim to the test procedure they said they owned the right to the gene itself. WTF? They didn't create anything.

 

They can patent a test for it, a potential medical cure, etc. but not the gene itself. Not any more.

[tvashtarkatena]

Yeah, despite the tomes above, the ruling was pretty simple. Genes aren't inventions. Not hard.

[prole]

This more your style?

 

"Transgressing the Boundaries: Towards a

Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum

Gravity.

 

There are many natural scientists, and especially physicists, who continue to reject the notion that the disciplines concerned with social and cultural criticism can have anything to contribute, except perhaps peripherally, to their research. Still less are they receptive to the idea that the very foundations of their worldview must be revised or rebuilt in the light of such criticism. Rather, they cling to the dogma imposed by the long post-Enlightenment hegemony over the Western intellectual

outlook, which can be summarized briefly as follows: that there exists an external world, whose properties are independent of any individual human being and indeed of humanity as a whole; that

these properties are encoded in ``eternal'' physical laws; and that human beings can obtain reliable, albeit imperfect and tentative, knowledge of these laws by hewing to the ``objective'' procedures and epistemological strictures prescribed by the (so-called) scientific method.

 

But deep conceptual shifts within twentieth-century science have undermined this Cartesian-Newtonian metaphysics1; revisionist studies in the history and philosophy of science have cast further doubt on its credibility2; and, most recently, feminist and poststructuralist critiques have demystified the substantive content of mainstream Western scientific practice, revealing the ideologyof domination concealed behind the façade of ``objectivity''.3

 

It has thus become increasingly apparent that physical ``reality'', no less than social ``reality'', is at bottom a social and linguistic construct; that scientific ``knowledge", far from being objective, reflects and encodes the dominant ideologies and power relations of the culture that produced it; that the truth claims of science are inherently theory-laden and self-referential; and consequently, that the discourse of the scientific community, for all its undeniable value, cannot assert a privileged epistemological status with respect to counter-hegemonic narratives emanating from dissident or marginalized communities."

 

http://compbio.chemistry.uq.edu.au/mediawiki/upload/f/f9/Sokal-transgressing-boundaries.pdf

 

 

Personally, I would advocate for a more historical approach; big "S" science, especially those disciplines and institutions engaged in production, should always be understood in its larger socio-economic and political context. Any claim for the autonomy of Texas Instruments from these processes or the question whether it could be considered "private" at all during the invention of the integrated circuit would make a simple case in point. The claim that "scientific ``knowledge", far from being objective, reflects and encodes the dominant ideologies and power relations of the culture that produced it" actually proves quite illuminating in this case, don'tcha think?

 

 

Texas Instruments can trace it roots back to 1930 when Dr. J. Clarence Karcher and Eugene McDermott founded Geophysical Service, a pioneering provider of seismic exploration services to the petroleum industry. In 1939 the company reorganized as Coronado Corp., an oil company with Geophysical Service Inc (GSI), now as a subsidiary. On December 6, 1941, McDermott along with three other GSI employees, J. Erik Jonsson, Cecil H. Green, and H.B. Peacock purchased GSI, During World War II, GSI built electronics for the U.S. Army Signal Corps and the U.S. Navy. After the war GSI continued to produce electronics. The rugged nature of equipment for the oil industry and of military equipment were similar and thus continued expansion into military contracts was a natural progression. In 1951 the company changed its name to Texas Instruments, GSI becoming a wholly owned subsidiary of the new company.

 

An early success story for TI-GSI came in the 1950s when GSI was able (under a Top Secret government contract) to monitor the Soviet Union's underground nuclear weapons testing from outcrop bedrock found in Oklahoma.[citation needed]

 

Texas Instruments also continued to manufacture equipment for use in the seismic industry, and GSI continued to provide seismic services. After selling (and repurchasing) GSI, TI finally sold the company to Halliburton in 1988, at which point GSI ceased to exist as a separate entity.

 

Defense electronics

 

Texas Instruments was also active in the defense electronics market starting in 1942 with submarine detection equipment, building on the seismic exploration technology developed for the oil industry. This business was known over time as the Laboratory & Manufacturing Division, the Apparatus Division, the Equipment Group and the Defense Systems & Electronics Group (DSEG).

 

During the 1980s quality became a focus area in this business. During the early 80s a quality program was instituted. This included wide spread Juran training, as well as promoting Statistical process control, Taguchi methods and Design for Six Sigma. In the late 80s TI, along with Eastman Kodak and Allied Signal, began involvement with Motorola institutionalizing Motorola's Six Sigma methodology[9]. Motorola, who originally develped the Six Sigma methodology, began this work in 1982. Note that TI's Six Sigma program began well before 1995 when GE started its legendary Six Sigma policy. In 1992 the DSEG division of Texas Instruments' quality improvement efforts were rewarded by winning the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award for manufacturing.

 

The following are some of the major programs of the former TI defense group[10]

 

Radar systems

 

TI went on to produce side-looking radar systems, the first terrain following radar and surveillance radar systems for both the military and FAA. In 1967 TI demonstrated the first solid-state radar — Molecular Electronics for Radar Applications (MERA). In 1976 TI developed a microwave landing system prototype. In 1984 TI developed the first inverse synthetic aperture radar (ISAR). The first single-chip gallium arsenide radar module was developed. In 1991 the Military Microwave Integrated Circuit (MIMIC) program was initiated – a joint effort with Raytheon.

 

Infrared systems

 

In 1956 TI began research on infrared technology that led to several line scanner contracts and with the addition of a second scan mirror the invention of the first forward looking infrared (FLIR) in 1963 with production beginning in 1966. In 1972 TI invented the Common Module FLIR concept, greatly reducing cost and allowing reuse of common components.

 

Missiles

 

In 1961 TI won the guidance and control system contract for the defense suppression AGM-45 Shrike anti-radiation missile. This led later to the prime on the high-speed anti-radiation missile (AGM-88 HARM) development contract in 1974 and production in 1981. In 1969 TI won the (missile) Seeker contract. In 1986 TI won the Army FGM-148 Javelin fire-and-forget man portable anti-tank guided missile in a joint venture with Martin Marietta. In 1991 TI was awarded the AGM-154 Joint Standoff Weapon (JSOW)

 

Military computers

 

Because of TI's dominance in military temperature range (silicon) transistors and integrated circuits (ICs), TI won contracts for the first IC-based computer for the U.S. Air Force in 1961 and for ICs for the Minuteman Missile the following year. In 1968 TI developed the data systems for Mariner Program. In 1991 TI won the F-22 Radar and Computer development contract.

 

Laser-guided bombs

A Bolt-117, the first laser-guided bomb built by Texas Instruments.

 

In 1964 TI began development of the first laser guidance system for precision-guided munitions (PGM) leading to the Paveway series of laser-guided bombs (LGB)s. The first LGB was the BOLT-117.

 

Divestiture to Raytheon

 

As the defense industry consolidated, TI sold its defense business to Raytheon in 1997 for $2.95 billion. The Department of Justice required that Raytheon divest the TI Monolithic Microwave Integrated Circuit (MMIC) operations after closing the transaction.[11] The TI MMIC business accounted for less than $40 million in 1996 revenues, or roughly two percent of the $1.8 billion in total TI defense revenues was sold to TriQuint Semiconductor, Inc. Raytheon retained its own existing MMIC capabilities and has the right to license TI's MMIC technology for use in future product applications from TriQuint.[12]

 

Shortly after Raytheon acquired TI DSEG, Raytheon then acquired Hughes Aircraft from General Motors Raytheon then owned TI's Mercury Cadmium Telluride detector business and Infrared (IR) systems group. In California, it also had Hughes infrared detector and an IR systems business. When again the US government forced Raytheon to divest itself of a duplicate capability, the company kept the TI IR systems business and the Hughes detector business. As a result of these acquisitions these former arch rivals of TI systems and Hughes detectors work together.[13]

 

Immediately after acquisition, DSEG was known as Raytheon TI Systems (RTIS)[14]. It is now fully integrated into Raytheon and this designation no longer exists.

[JayB]

This more your style?

 

"Transgressing the Boundaries: Towards a

Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum

Gravity.

 

There are many natural scientists, and especially physicists, who continue to reject the notion that the disciplines concerned with social and cultural criticism can have anything to contribute, except perhaps peripherally, to their research. Still less are they receptive to the idea that the very foundations of their worldview must be revised or rebuilt in the light of such criticism. Rather, they cling to the dogma imposed by the long post-Enlightenment hegemony over the Western intellectual

outlook, which can be summarized briefly as follows: that there exists an external world, whose properties are independent of any individual human being and indeed of humanity as a whole; that

these properties are encoded in ``eternal'' physical laws; and that human beings can obtain reliable, albeit imperfect and tentative, knowledge of these laws by hewing to the ``objective'' procedures and epistemological strictures prescribed by the (so-called) scientific method.

 

But deep conceptual shifts within twentieth-century science have undermined this Cartesian-Newtonian metaphysics1; revisionist studies in the history and philosophy of science have cast further doubt on its credibility2; and, most recently, feminist and poststructuralist critiques have demystified the substantive content of mainstream Western scientific practice, revealing the ideologyof domination concealed behind the façade of ``objectivity''.3

 

It has thus become increasingly apparent that physical ``reality'', no less than social ``reality'', is at bottom a social and linguistic construct; that scientific ``knowledge", far from being objective, reflects and encodes the dominant ideologies and power relations of the culture that produced it; that the truth claims of science are inherently theory-laden and self-referential; and consequently, that the discourse of the scientific community, for all its undeniable value, cannot assert a privileged epistemological status with respect to counter-hegemonic narratives emanating from dissident or marginalized communities."

 

http://compbio.chemistry.uq.edu.au/mediawiki/upload/f/f9/Sokal-transgressing-boundaries.pdf

 

 

Personally, I would advocate for a more historical approach; big "S" science, especially those disciplines and institutions engaged in production, should always be understood in its larger socio-economic and political context. Any claim for the autonomy of Texas Instruments from these processes or the question whether it could be considered "private" at all during the invention of the integrated circuit would make a simple case in point. The claim that "scientific ``knowledge", far from being objective, reflects and encodes the dominant ideologies and power relations of the culture that produced it" actually proves quite illuminating in this case, don'tcha think?

 

 

Texas Instruments can trace it roots back to 1930 when Dr. J. Clarence Karcher and Eugene McDermott founded Geophysical Service, a pioneering provider of seismic exploration services to the petroleum industry. In 1939 the company reorganized as Coronado Corp., an oil company with Geophysical Service Inc (GSI), now as a subsidiary. On December 6, 1941, McDermott along with three other GSI employees, J. Erik Jonsson, Cecil H. Green, and H.B. Peacock purchased GSI, During World War II, GSI built electronics for the U.S. Army Signal Corps and the U.S. Navy. After the war GSI continued to produce electronics. The rugged nature of equipment for the oil industry and of military equipment were similar and thus continued expansion into military contracts was a natural progression. In 1951 the company changed its name to Texas Instruments, GSI becoming a wholly owned subsidiary of the new company.

 

An early success story for TI-GSI came in the 1950s when GSI was able (under a Top Secret government contract) to monitor the Soviet Union's underground nuclear weapons testing from outcrop bedrock found in Oklahoma.[citation needed]

 

Texas Instruments also continued to manufacture equipment for use in the seismic industry, and GSI continued to provide seismic services. After selling (and repurchasing) GSI, TI finally sold the company to Halliburton in 1988, at which point GSI ceased to exist as a separate entity.

 

Defense electronics

 

Texas Instruments was also active in the defense electronics market starting in 1942 with submarine detection equipment, building on the seismic exploration technology developed for the oil industry. This business was known over time as the Laboratory & Manufacturing Division, the Apparatus Division, the Equipment Group and the Defense Systems & Electronics Group (DSEG).

 

During the 1980s quality became a focus area in this business. During the early 80s a quality program was instituted. This included wide spread Juran training, as well as promoting Statistical process control, Taguchi methods and Design for Six Sigma. In the late 80s TI, along with Eastman Kodak and Allied Signal, began involvement with Motorola institutionalizing Motorola's Six Sigma methodology[9]. Motorola, who originally develped the Six Sigma methodology, began this work in 1982. Note that TI's Six Sigma program began well before 1995 when GE started its legendary Six Sigma policy. In 1992 the DSEG division of Texas Instruments' quality improvement efforts were rewarded by winning the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award for manufacturing.

 

The following are some of the major programs of the former TI defense group[10]

 

Radar systems

 

TI went on to produce side-looking radar systems, the first terrain following radar and surveillance radar systems for both the military and FAA. In 1967 TI demonstrated the first solid-state radar — Molecular Electronics for Radar Applications (MERA). In 1976 TI developed a microwave landing system prototype. In 1984 TI developed the first inverse synthetic aperture radar (ISAR). The first single-chip gallium arsenide radar module was developed. In 1991 the Military Microwave Integrated Circuit (MIMIC) program was initiated – a joint effort with Raytheon.

 

Infrared systems

 

In 1956 TI began research on infrared technology that led to several line scanner contracts and with the addition of a second scan mirror the invention of the first forward looking infrared (FLIR) in 1963 with production beginning in 1966. In 1972 TI invented the Common Module FLIR concept, greatly reducing cost and allowing reuse of common components.

 

Missiles

 

In 1961 TI won the guidance and control system contract for the defense suppression AGM-45 Shrike anti-radiation missile. This led later to the prime on the high-speed anti-radiation missile (AGM-88 HARM) development contract in 1974 and production in 1981. In 1969 TI won the (missile) Seeker contract. In 1986 TI won the Army FGM-148 Javelin fire-and-forget man portable anti-tank guided missile in a joint venture with Martin Marietta. In 1991 TI was awarded the AGM-154 Joint Standoff Weapon (JSOW)

 

Military computers

 

Because of TI's dominance in military temperature range (silicon) transistors and integrated circuits (ICs), TI won contracts for the first IC-based computer for the U.S. Air Force in 1961 and for ICs for the Minuteman Missile the following year. In 1968 TI developed the data systems for Mariner Program. In 1991 TI won the F-22 Radar and Computer development contract.

 

Laser-guided bombs

A Bolt-117, the first laser-guided bomb built by Texas Instruments.

 

In 1964 TI began development of the first laser guidance system for precision-guided munitions (PGM) leading to the Paveway series of laser-guided bombs (LGB)s. The first LGB was the BOLT-117.

 

Divestiture to Raytheon

 

As the defense industry consolidated, TI sold its defense business to Raytheon in 1997 for $2.95 billion. The Department of Justice required that Raytheon divest the TI Monolithic Microwave Integrated Circuit (MMIC) operations after closing the transaction.[11] The TI MMIC business accounted for less than $40 million in 1996 revenues, or roughly two percent of the $1.8 billion in total TI defense revenues was sold to TriQuint Semiconductor, Inc. Raytheon retained its own existing MMIC capabilities and has the right to license TI's MMIC technology for use in future product applications from TriQuint.[12]

 

Shortly after Raytheon acquired TI DSEG, Raytheon then acquired Hughes Aircraft from General Motors Raytheon then owned TI's Mercury Cadmium Telluride detector business and Infrared (IR) systems group. In California, it also had Hughes infrared detector and an IR systems business. When again the US government forced Raytheon to divest itself of a duplicate capability, the company kept the TI IR systems business and the Hughes detector business. As a result of these acquisitions these former arch rivals of TI systems and Hughes detectors work together.[13]

 

Immediately after acquisition, DSEG was known as Raytheon TI Systems (RTIS)[14]. It is now fully integrated into Raytheon and this designation no longer exists.

 

Revealing. Yes.

 

"The Sokal Affair (also Sokal’s Hoax) was a publishing hoax perpetrated by Alan Sokal, a physics professor at New York University. In 1996, Prof. Sokal submitted an article to Social Text, an academic journal dedicated to postmodern cultural studies. The submission was an experiment testing the magazine’s editorial practice of intellectual rigor, to learn if an academic journal would “publish an article liberally salted with nonsense if (a) it sounded good and (b) it flattered the editors’ ideological preconceptions.”[1]

 

The article, “Transgressing the Boundaries: Towards a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity”, proposed that quantum gravity is a social and linguistic construct; it was published in the Social Text Spring/Summer 1996 “Science Wars” issue. At that time, the journal did not practice peer review fact-checking, and did not submit the article for outside expert review by a physicist.[2][3] On its date of publication, in May 1996, in the journal Lingua Franca, Sokal revealed that “Transgressing the Boundaries: Towards a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity” was a hoax, identifying it as “a pastiche of left-wing cant, fawning references, grandiose quotations, and outright nonsense . . . structured around the silliest quotations [by postmodernist academics he] could find about mathematics and physics”."