Are these results able to be patented?

[ron3763]

We SHUOULD GET $$ if corporation "A" is working on something and will PATENT the findings!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Because our money in electric and compute costs went to solve their problem. Any said findings should be mandated to be Public domain. I do NOT want my donations and expense in time/electric/computer use to go to Corp "A" to not cure me, but 'manage' my disease so they can charge me $300/pill for the rest of my life!

If a BIONIC project is private with private computers that is separate issue.

[John Naylor]

The results from this project are all released into the public domain, and are free for use. (Go on http://folding.stanford.edu and click Results to get papers). By their nature this does however mean that a corporation can then take this research, then either add it to their own or do deeper research in a specific area, and then patent those findings. Should that happen then the contributors will not be reimbursed, as the corporation was furthering the research as opposed to just passing off the work of this project as their own.

[ron3763]

If I recall all work that is progressed forward from others work, be cited in scientific papers and/or I hope patents, so as to limit their 100% claim on the results. I would hope.

[John Naylor]

Yes it should be cited... but the Pande Group released the work into the public domain, so I doubt they would get much if any reimbursement were a successful patent application made.

[shoob]

This is kind of an old thread, so sorry for bringing it back to life, however, my concern isn't necessarily of anything being patented or making money, but of recognition. Does FAH submit a finder's (or the major contributors) name(s) with these published papers? For example, if someone's computer processes a WU that has a significant find for alzheimer's which is then published in a peer-review paper, will they get name-recognition for the find?

Other "@Home" projects do this (PrimeGrid, for example).

Apologizes if this has been asked/answered, but have not found anything about it on the project website or FAQ.

Thanks.

[7im]

Hello shoob, welcome to the forum.

Short answer, No.

Unlike the work units from the other projects, the time slice on each fah work unit is so small, it needs to be combined with other completed work units for the resulting data to be meaningful. It's a team effort, we all get credit.

[whynot]

Unlike the work units from the other projects, the time slice on each fah work unit is so small, it needs to be combined with other completed work units for the resulting data to be meaningful. It's a team effort, we all get credit.

And neither AS nor CS know the name of contributor, it's not even nickname -- only ID

p.s. give me my credit in P3798!

[bruce]

And neither AS nor CS know the name of contributor, it's not even nickname -- only ID

Where did you get that information? Every WU that is uploaded contains the UserName and the TeamNo associated with that particular WU. (The ID is also known, but that's a different issue.) The AS is only responsible for assigning a specific Work Server so it doesn't know your name, but it doesn't need to. When the result is uploaded to either the WS or the CS, it does no your name and team and that's how it gets reported to the stats system. (Your UserName and TeamNo are not locked in until the WU is finished anyway.)

If we're still on topic, let's suppose that Project XXXX contributes a major scientific finding which ultimately leads to a cure for disease YYYY. If there were (suppose) 200 runs, 1000 clones and 50 gens in project XXXX, then there might be as many as 10,000,000 donors that contributed to the completion of project XXXX. Of course it's more likely that XXXX is not a single project, but a series of perhaps a dozen different projects that contributed to that result so maybe we're talking about 120,000,000 donors contributing to the cure for disease YYYY.

[whynot]

And neither AS nor CS know the name of contributor, it's not even nickname -- only ID

Where did you get that information? Every WU that is uploaded contains the UserName and the TeamNo associated with that particular WU. (The ID is also known, but that's a different issue.) The AS is only responsible for assigning a specific Work Server so it doesn't know your name, but it doesn't need to. When the result is uploaded to either the WS or the CS, it does no your name and team and that's how it gets reported to the stats system. (Your UserName and TeamNo are not locked in until the WU is finished anyway.)

Thanks for clear description. That me who had choosen wrong wording.

I think that neither UserName-TeamNo pair nor ID isn't identity. I (my identity) is unknown for either AS or CS. So I can claim anyone else contribution. So anyone else can claim my contribution. Such claims can be neither beaten nor proven. Thus they are useles.

If we're still on topic, let's suppose that Project XXXX contributes a major scientific finding which ultimately leads to a cure for disease YYYY. If there were (suppose) 200 runs, 1000 clones and 50 gens in project XXXX, then there might be as many as 10,000,000 donors that contributed to the completion of project XXXX. Of course it's more likely that XXXX is not a single project, but a series of perhaps a dozen different projects that contributed to that result so maybe we're talking about 120,000,000 donors contributing to the cure for disease YYYY.

Are there so many crunchers?

[Zagen30]

Currently there are around 425,000 active clients, and many contributors run more than one client, so the actual number of donors is likely much lower (don't know what an average figure is for clients per donor). Bruce was giving a highest-case scenario, saying that the number of individual donors on a project could reach into the millions if F@h had that many contributors.

[road-runner]

Have any corporations or anyone ever used anything folding has done? Do they even look at it? Ever made any drugs? Another words are we doing any good?

[7im]

Yes. Vijay mentioned making progress with Alzheimers, but I didn't bookmark it. You'll have to dig, sorry. Don't recall any other specific examples, but here are 50+ papers worth of progress. I don't understand most of them, so not really sure how well that relates to what you are asking...

[flaunt]

I can understand not wanting a corporation to be able to take the results of these studies done by FAH and patent them so that nobody else can use them, however I don't understand the hostility toward patenting in general. Patenting exists so that people can stand a reasonable chance of producing a product that makes a profit. This results in the availability of products that otherwise might not exist because the risk/reward ratio weighs too heavily against success. It's one of the things that allows capitalism to lead to prosperity better than any other known economic system.

I'm participating in FAH and I realize that my computer's power is being used to advance studies that may lead to further studies which may eventually lead to advances in the field of medicine. If you're not satisfied with that reality then you shouldn't be contributing... You're making a donation, not partipating in a scientific collaboration in which you are a partial owner of the results.

[road-runner]

I am participating to hopefully find cures, I was just wondering if were having progress on anything. I do not mind company's making a profit but I however would not be real happy if a corp. took what is free then turn around and bend the public over for something folding has give them for free, there is a difference between profit and rape...

[bruce]

Any company can read the research papers -- but before a drug can be patented/marked, there's a lot of other work that needs to be done. Clinical trials cost money, and if those trials demonstrate that the drug successfully treats the intended disease and that the side-effects are manageable, then the company should be entitled to the patent and the rights to market the drug.

Since the research paper describes the fundamental process with which a drug should interact, it's also possible that the same research could lead a second drug company to develop a different drug which is also patentable/marketable for the same condition.

The Development of specific drugs and the testing that it takes to get them approved is part of the business plan for drug companies and Stanford does not participate in that process. The technical papers are available to anyone who can use them.

I do object to donating my time and money if that donation can only be used by one drug company -- and that's another way of saying I don't want to donate to that company's patent. I do want to donate to the advancement of science -- specifically, to the Research -- in ways that can benefit any company that can use that Research.

We often talk about R&D (Research and Development) as if they were the same thing, but they're really not. Research figures out the scientific fundamentals. Development applies those fundamentals to create a specific product.