To my horror, I seem to have spent quite a lot of time recently reading about and thinking about the philosophy of IP law. A year ago, I would have rolled my eyes and edged away from anyone who said something at once so pompous and so dull. At heart, I am a realist, a pragmatist. I’m primarily interested in knowing things that will help my clients win. Until recently, I took a ruthlessly...
I can’t deny it – I am a terrible magpie. I want to learn about everything that is new and shiny and sparklingly original. It was because of this tendency that I spent quite a large chunk of last year learning about human genome editing. And what I discovered is that – as many of you will no doubt know already – this technology really is more than just a sparkling new toy...
First, a confession. This particular bugbear is linked to an earlier one: direct-to-consumer sales of gene testing for health purposes. I posted about that here. To add fuel to my already well-stoked fire of indignation, the presenter who tried to sell me gene testing and analysis services styled herself as “Dr L_____”. Dr L’s business card gave her qualifications as “DDS, BS, Genetic...
Maybe I’m naïve, but last year I went to a talk our local library, which was billed as “a free educational evening on epigenetics, nutrigenetics, nutrigenomics, inflammation, methylation, vitamin D & more”, thinking that it was going to be a general academic talk on those subjects. Perhaps I was lulled into a false sense of security by the venue, or the fact that I was invited by...
