When radio was invented in the late nineteenth century by the likes of Marconi, Edison, and Tesla, government and industry faced a conundrum. Who would own the limited band of electromagnetic frequencies that made this new invention possible?
By the 1920s the decision was made that the public would own the airwaves, with the government leasing frequencies to companies that were required to follow certain rules. A century later this system isn’t perfect, but it does bring us every day everything from text messages to Youtube, to the latest hits from Lady Gaga.
Society now faces a similar ownership predicament with who owns human genes — another kind of spectrum that always existed, but was unsuspected until we discovered it. This time, however, the story is different. Instead of a public ownership model granting licenses, the U.S. Patent Office has spent the last twenty years awarding patents to companies, universities and others who discover genes — with over 20% of human genes already claimed.
Controversial for decades, the validity of issuing these patents has erupted again in a case brought last year by the American Civil Liberties Union against Myriad Genetics (MYGN), which holds patents on two genes that in a mutated form can cause a person to be high risk for breast cancer. According to the ACLU and a long list of plaintiffs that includes research and patient advocacy groups, the U.S. Patent Office (also listed as a defendant) was wrong to issue these patents — and by extension all genetic patents.
"Genes are naturally occurring entities, like air or gravity," says ACLU attorney Chris Hansen, "and therefore under the law they are ineligible for patenting."
The ACLU also claims that Myriad’s patents block access to the genes by researchers and patients who want a second opinion on breast cancer results, but are barred by the exclusivity of the Myriad patent. They criticize Myriad’s access prices, which can range as high as $3,000.
Myriad General Counsel Richard Marsh counters that Myriad and researchers working at the University of Utah — which co-own the patents, and are co-defendants in the suit — did discover something that exists outside of nature. By extracting the genes from the human body, the company claimed, and the U.S. Patent Office agreed, that it had created an isolated sequence that is patentable, whereas the sequence as it occurs inside a person is not — a contention being directly challenged by ACLU.
Marsh also insists that researchers and patients have benefited from Myriad patenting the BRCA I and BRCA II genes and certain mutations within these genes that are linked to breast and ovarian cancer. He also defended the company’s pricing, saying that it is the essence of patent protection — that Myriad can charge what it likes on something it has created, until the patent lapses and the gene enters the public domain.
More critically, Myriad and others in the pharmaceutical industry claim that without patent protections, no one would invest in developing products based on genetic markers for disease. "Without patents, who is going to do the work and spend the money to make this product accessible to people?" asks Marsh cheapest personal loan rates.
Both sides are now waiting for federal Judge Robert Sweet to rule on whether or not the case will go to trial in the U.S. District Court of the Southern District of New York. Last month Sweet refused to dismiss the case in a motion filed by Myriad, suggesting that he may want to hear the case, although no one knows for sure.
"If not now, it will have to be dealt with later, because there are core issues at stake that impact the entire pharmaceutical industry," says Robert Cook-Deegan, Director of the Center for Genome Ethics, Law & Policy at Duke University.
Which brings us back to the invention of the radio and the electromagnetic spectrum — and potential solutions that demand some imagination and creativity beyond the tried and true pharma track of slapping patents on everything in sight.
One idea would be to turn genetic discoveries — many of which are initially found using taxpayer funds — into publicly owned entities that could be licensed to companies like frequencies on the radio dial. Licensees would be required to follow certain rules such as allowing researchers and patients access to DNA sequences, and requiring that pricing be in line with costs.
A variation of this model has been used for decades to govern the extraction of natural resources such as oil and gold from public lands. Businesses bid on and receive licenses that allow them to extract these resources (and to earn back investments) for a period of time if they follow certain rules.
Yet another idea comes from a 2004 global agricultural pact — The International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture — ratified by the United States and other nations that allows patent holders to own a genetic discovery for modifying plants, but not to block others from licensing and using it. Last month, an advisory committee at the Department of Health and Human services issued recommendations that patents on genetic diagnostic tests also be modified to allow greater access by researchers and patients.
Ultimately, the tussle over who owns genes may be decided not by government agencies, lawyers, or judges, but by advancements in science. Already the notion that one gene marker can best determine a person’s risk for a common disease is becoming outmoded. The latest science suggests that risk factors for maladies such as diabetes are increased by the interaction of dozens — or even hundreds — of genes and other molecular structures in the body. A legal system that does not retain flexibility in incorporating this rapidly moving science will cause confusion down the line.
Finding clarity in the issue of who owns our DNA will take time, and will be far more complex than, say, a simple frequency on a radio carrying a song by Lady Gaga. Yet it’s crucial in this new age of genomics and molecular biology that we are as clever about how we implement new discoveries as the discoveries themselves.
Google Inc. has again tinkered with its new Buzz social networking service in the face of continued privacy concerns.
The company (NASDAQ:GOOG) said on a blog Saturday that it will stop automaticly subscribing users to follow the postings of their close Gmail contacts. Now it will only suggest users follow people from their Gmail contacts and leave it up them to do so.
Privacy advocates criticized Google for this automatic following feature, saying it spread the names and contact information of people around without their permission.
This is the second time in Buzz's first week that Google has had to adjust the service in the face of negative postings on Twitter, blogs and on the Buzz service itself business card. On Thursday, the company made it easier for users to keep photos and other information from public view.
"We quickly realized that we didn't get everything quite right," product manager Todd Jackson wrote on Saturday's blog posting. "We're very sorry for the concern we've caused and have been working hard ever since to improve things based on your feedback. We'll continue to do so."
Thirteen of Arizona’s 21 billion-dollar public companies saw their stock prices move up during the fourth quarter.
Seven of the companies posted double-digit gains, with Clear Channel Outdoor leading the pack at 58 percent, according to the Phoenix Business Journal’s analysis of prices from Sept. 30 through 30 through Dec. 18.
Penny stock Mesa Air Group mirrored that performance with a 58 percent decline to lead the group of eight companies with a drop in price per share over the quarter.
Over the same period the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 6.4 percent and the Nasdaq Composite moved up 4.2 percent.
The Arizona group did better when price changed is measured over all of 2009, but all but four of the stocks still lag from the end of 2007. Click here for the 2009 wrapup and here for a two-year look at local stocks.
Estate planner Richard Behrendt helped his client make $5 million loans to each of his children this year, avoiding gift taxes of 45 percent and saving the kids as much as $837,000 apiece in interest.
Rates for so-called intra-family loans have declined as much as 53 percent since 2008. “The timing of it was clearly tied to the rock bottom of these rates,” said Behrendt, who works for Robert W. Baird & Co., based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
The loans may be the perfect holiday gift to help relatives this year, according to Carol Kroch, head of wealth and financial planning at Wilmington, Delaware-based Wilmington Trust. For wealthy taxpayers, they can be used for estate planning purposes, since gains earned will be free of estate and gift taxes.
That’s because low interest rates and depressed asset values mean there’s a greater possibility that investments purchased with an intra-family loan, such as stock, will appreciate more than the loan’s cost, Kroch said.
The rate for an intra-family loan made in January 2010 for less than three years is 0.57 percent. The rate is 2.45 percent for a loan of three years to nine years and 4.11 percent for a loan of nine years or more, according to the Internal Revenue Service, which sets the rates monthly. That compares with an average rate of 10.55 percent for a personal bank loan in the New York metro area and 12.51 percent for a credit-union loan, based on data from Bankrate.com.
“The chances are they are going to go up, the only question is how fast or how soon,” said Bill Fleming, managing director of New York-based PricewaterhouseCoopers’s Private Company Services Group, referring to rates for intra-family loans.
Tax Savings
Behrendt’s client, who has a net worth of $100 million, loaned each of his three children $5 million for nine years. The children invested the money in a balanced portfolio seeking at least a 5 percent return, said Behrendt, a former estate tax attorney for the IRS.
Any amount above the 1.65 interest rate, which was the February rate, should pass to the client’s children free of estate and gift taxes, he said. The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index has increased 36 percent since February as of yesterday.
The borrowers also saved on interest costs because of the low rates. Each will owe $82,500 in interest annually, compared with $175,500 if the loan had been made in February 2008 when the rate was 3.51 percent.
Current federal law taxes estates exceeding $3.5 million for an individual or $7 million for a married couple at as much as 45 percent. Any gift to an individual of more than $13,000 annually may also be taxed as much as 45 percent with a $1 million lifetime exclusion per donor, according to the IRS.
Estate Tax
The estate tax is scheduled to expire for a year on Jan. 1 under the provisions of a tax-cut bill enacted in 2001. It comes back in 2011, taxing estates valued at more than $1 million as much as 55 percent. Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, Democrat of Montana, has vowed to extend the estate tax in 2010 retroactively.
Lenders who are subject to the estate tax can use the loans to reduce the value of their estates because the appreciation of any investment made with the loan above the IRS rate accrues outside of the lender’s estate, said Larry Richman, chair of private wealth services at Neal, Gerber & Eisenberg LLP in Chicago.
Taxpayers with family businesses may also want to consider intra-family loans to help with the sale of the business to family members, according to David Kron, a partner in the Fort Lauderdale office of law firm Ruden McClosky.
Parents can loan their children money to buy the business and the children can repay using profits from the firm. The future appreciation and any income of the business beyond the loan amount are then considered part of the children’s, not the parents’, estate, Kron said.
‘Low-Tech’ Tool
Intra-family loans are a “low-tech” way to give money to family members because they’re easy to set up and are appropriate for anyone regardless of net worth, said Deborah L. Jacobs, author of “Estate Planning Smarts: A Practical, User- Friendly, Action-Oriented Guide,” which was published this month.
Family members should be aware the loans must be repaid in full with interest at the rate specified by the IRS. If the borrower doesn’t repay, it may be considered a gift subject to the gift tax, said Jacobs, who is based in New York.
Lenders should also consider the income tax they’ll owe on the interest received with repayment of the loan, said Kron.
‘Thanksgiving Firecracker’
Loaning money to family members may create relationship issues, said Dan Deighan of Melbourne, Florida-based Deighan Financial Advisors Inc.
“It’s like throwing a firecracker on the Thanksgiving dinner table when you bring money issues into the family dynamic,” Deighan said.
Borrowers can get “sloppy with repayments,” which is why setting up an automatic bank transfer for payments is recommended, said Fleming of PricewaterhouseCoopers.
Don Albritton, a 61-year-old executive in Longwood, Florida, gave his son $260,000 to buy a house through a 30-year intra-family loan four years ago. Albritton ended up taking the house back after his son was unable to sell it without taking a loss. Home prices have declined 17 percent since January 2005, according to the S&P/Case-Shiller index for 20 metropolitan areas.
“I’m not discouraged,” Albritton said. “I’m getting ready to make him another loan now.”
The Raleigh-Cary metro area was one of the few regions in the country to show job growth in the third quarter, signaling the area may be among the better performers pulling out of recession, according to a report released Tuesday by the Brookings Institution.
Unemployment in Raleigh-Cary was 8.6 percent in the third quarter, a 0.1 percent improvement compared to the second quarter. The modest growth is better than most of the top 100 metros evaluated by the Washington, D.C., think tank. Just 13 of the top 100 metros experienced job growth in the third quarter. The U.S. average for the top 100 metros was 9.6 percent unemployment, a 0.5 percent increase in unemployment in the third quarter compared to the second quarter.
Raleigh-Cary was also one of just 10 metro areas to show faster growth in jobs and gross metropolitan product in the third quarter compared to the second quarter, according to Brookings. Raleigh-Cary GMP increased by 1.1 percent in the third quarter compared to the second quarter instant payday loan.
Nationally, gross domestic product increased at a 2.8 percent annual rate in the third quarter. That was the first increase after four consecutive quarters of contraction. Brookings said the growth, along with other indicators such as increasing housing prices, are a sign that recovery is under way.
But Brookings cautioned that the recovery “seems fragile.”
“The output increase may have resulted largely from the replenishment of manufacturing inventories and from temporary federal policies: the ‘cash-for-clunkers’ program, the first-time home buyer tax credit, and the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act’s economic stimulus,” the report states. “As the effects of these policies recede, the recovery could slow or give way to yet another recession or a prolonged period of economic stagnation.”
LONDON–In a move that could help improve relations between Google Inc. and the media industry, the Internet search company is offering publishers a way to build more solid "pay walls" around their online stories while still appearing in search results.
In an official blog post Tuesday, Google said it will let publishers limit the number of restricted articles that readers can get for free through its search engine.
The change could remove one significant hurdle publishers face as they contemplate charging readers online. Many newspapers are considering such fees because online advertising on free sites hasn't offset the precipitous decline in print ad revenue that has come with the recession and competition from the Web.
The Wall Street Journal is perhaps the best example of how the new tool could help.
The newspaper charges for access to most articles on its Web site, but its pay wall is "leaky." Readers can grab the first sentence from a preview of the story, punch it in to Google and access the full story in the search results.
The Journal could simply block Google from indexing its stories, but that would cut traffic to its site significantly. Less traffic means less ad revenue.
The problem has infuriated executives at News Corp., which owns the Journal.
News Corp. Chairman Rupert Murdoch told a conference organized by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission on Tuesday that media companies should charge for content and stop news aggregators such as Google from "feeding off the hard-earned efforts and investments of others.''
The change to Google's "First Click Free" program would allow publishers to limit the number of paid articles a reader could access through its search engine to five per day.
That could assuage the anger of media titans like Murdoch, allowing news outlets to stay relevant by appearing in search results while still trying to wring fees from readers.
A News Corp. spokesman declined comment Wednesday.
In Google's blog post, Josh Cohen, senior business product manager, stressed that publishers and Google could coexist.
"After all, whether you're offering your content for free or selling it, it's crucial that people find it." he said. "Google can help with that.''
Cohen said that Google will also begin indexing and treating as “free" any preview pages – usually the headline and first few paragraphs of a story – from subscription Web sites. People using Google would then see the same content that would be shown free to a user of the media site. The stories would be labeled as “subscription" in Google News.
"The ranking of these articles will be subject to the same criteria as all sites in Google, whether paid or free," Cohen said. "Paid content may not do as well as free options, but that is not a decision we make based on whether or not it's free. It's simply based on the popularity of the content with users and other sites that link to it.''
Gulf markets dropped again on Tuesday, taking little comfort from Dubai World’s plan to restructure about $26 billion of debt and despite reassurances on economic resilience from the rulers of Abu Dhabi and Dubai.
Dubai stocks fell a further 5.6 percent and the Abu Dhabi bourse lost 3.6 percent on their second trading day since Dubai last week asked creditors of Dubai World and its property arm Nakheel for a six-month delay on debt repayments. Qatar’s bourse was also more than 8 percent lower.
State-controlled Dubai World, which led the emirate’s transformation into a regional hub for finance, investment and tourism, unveiled details late on Monday of the restructuring and which parts of its empire were affected. The process will focus on $26 billion of debt owed by its main property firms, Nakheel and Limitless.
Dubai World said it had appointed Moelis & Co, the investment bank created by former UBS president Ken Moelis, to advise on the restructuring while Rothschild would continue to be its investment adviser.
Global markets took a pounding when news broke last week that Dubai World was unable to pay its debts, although on Tuesday, Asian and European stocks were up, following the lead from Wall Street overnight as fears of contagion eased.
Dubai’s ruler Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, who is also the United Arab Emirates’ vice president, prime minister and defense minister, said the global reaction had shown “a lack of understanding.”
“We have the determination and will power to face all challenges, including the ill-intentioned media challenges,” Sheikh Mohammed said, according to a statement from his office.
John Sfakianakis, chief economist at Banque Saudi Fransi-Credit Agricole Group in Riyadh, said the Dubai ruler’s remarks “although very broad, should be welcomed by global markets at a time when they are thirsty for clarity, reassurance and information.”
Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed al-Nahayan, president of the UAE and ruler of Abu Dhabi, said the UAE economy was showing signs of gradual growth in the fourth quarter.
Dubai’s troubles could shift political power in the UAE, a seven-emirate federation celebrating 38 years of unity on Wednesday, toward oil-producing Abu Dhabi and away from its exuberant neighbor.
The Dubai World group, whose total liabilities are estimated at nearly $60 billion, said the restructuring would exclude “financially stable” units such as Infinity World Holding, Istithmar World and Ports & Free Zone World, which includes DP World, Economic Zones World, P&O Ferries and Jebel Ali Free Zone.
Dubai World would look at options for cutting its debt, including asset sales, it added.
But the group may not be able to keep revenue-generating assets such as port operator DP World and Istithmar’s 2.7 percent stake in Standard Chartered, while selling its battered property firms.
“I don’t think they’re in a position to choose,” Khuram Maqsood, managing director of Emirates Capital and a former director at Istithmar.
“Dubai World desperately needs cash. Everything is for sale. I don’t think anything is sacred in the current environment.”
The U.K. economy shrank less than previously estimated in the third quarter as consumer spending stopped falling and the service industries slump eased, bringing the longest recession on record closer to an end.
Gross domestic product fell 0.3 percent from the previous three months, compared with a prior measurement of a 0.4 percent drop, the Office for National Statistics said today in London. The result matched the median prediction of 28 economists in a Bloomberg News survey.
Prime Minister Gordon Brown this week called for stimulus to stay in place to avoid “choking off recovery” as an election looms within six months. The Bank of England has expanded its bond-purchase plan three times since March to ensure Britain’s escape from recession and Governor Mervyn King said yesterday the pickup isn’t “particularly strong.”
“Over the coming quarters the economy will accelerate pretty sharply,” said Nick Kounis, chief European economist at Fortis Bank Nederland NV in Amsterdam and a former U.K. Treasury official. “In third quarter the U.K. was one of the sick men of Europe but it’s going to step up a few gears and will be one of the stronger performers in Europe next year.”
The pound rose 0.8 percent against the dollar today and traded at $1.6704 as of 11:04 a.m. in London. The yield on the 2-year gilt fell 6 basis points to 1.16 percent.
Lagging Behind
The U.K.’s recovery has lagged behind that of the U.S. and the euro area, which have both returned to growth. Data yesterday showed Germany’s economic growth accelerated in the third quarter, while the U.S. economy expanded at a 2.8 percent annual rate, less than the government reported last month.
Brown is trying to revive the U.K. economy in time to defeat Conservative Leader David Cameron at the election, due by June. An Ipsos Mori poll in the Observer on Nov. 22 showed the Conservatives with a six-point lead, the least since December.
Consumer spending was unchanged in the third quarter, the first time it hasn’t dropped in 1 1/2 years. Government spending rose 0.2 percent, while fixed investment fell 0.3 percent, the statistics office said.
J Sainsbury Plc, the U.K.’s third- biggest supermarket owner, on Nov. 11 reported growth in first-half profit that beat analysts’ estimates. John Lewis Partnership Plc, owner of the namesake department stores and Waitrose supermarkets, said Nov fast cash advance loan. 22 that sales gained 15 percent in the week of Nov. 21.
Inventories fell by 4.1 billion pounds ($6.8 billion), the fourth consecutive decline. The slump in inventories is now the biggest on record, the statistics office said.
Services, Manufacturing
Officials revised up the GDP data because the decline in services output was smaller than previously estimated, at 0.1 percent instead of 0.2 percent. Manufacturing dropped 0.1 percent, up from the prior measurement of 0.2 percent.
Compass Group Plc, the world’s largest catering company, today reported full-year profit that beat analyst estimates. Lloyds Banking Group Plc, the U.K.’s biggest mortgage lender, gained in London trading yesterday after it announced plans to raise a record 13.5 billion pounds in the country’s biggest rights offering.
The Bank of England forecasts Britain will exit the recession in the fourth quarter. The economy will expand 2.2 percent in 2010 and 4.1 percent in 2011, according to policy makers’ projections published on Nov. 11.
Policy makers have cut the benchmark interest rate to a record low of 0.5 percent and pledged to buy 200 billion pounds in bonds to aid the economy. While policy maker Adam Posen told lawmakers that “one hopes that we are coming to the end” of the purchase program, King said he “can’t rule out” buying more assets.
Data ‘Surprise’
Policy maker Andrew Sentance said in a speech on Nov. 16 that the “surprise” gross domestic product estimate may be revised later, and told Bloomberg Television that “the broad balance of evidence is that the U.K. economy has started to grow in the second half of this year.”
Unemployment rose at the slowest pace in 18 months in October, retail sales climbed for a second month and the inflation rate increased more than expected, to 1.5 percent. The bank aims to keep inflation at 2 percent.
Banks are still working to shore up their finances after government-led bailouts of Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc and Lloyds Banking Group Plc during the 2008 financial crisis. Lloyds said yesterday it plans to raise a record 13.4 billion pounds in the country’s biggest rights offering.
U.S. government incentives likely pushed U.S. auto sales to a 20-month high in August, leaving analysts and the industry guessing how hard a landing to expect with the “Cash for Clunkers” program now exhausted.
Automakers could see the U.S. seasonally adjusted rate of sales, a closely watched indicator of demand for big-ticket items, jump to nearly 16 million vehicles in August under the “clunkers” program, analysts said. That would be the highest monthly sales rate since December 2007.
But with the incentive program ended and only heavily picked over vehicles left in inventories, September is expected to be a much leaner sales month, with the severity of the pullback dependent on the U.S. economy’s health.
The annualized sales rate reached 15.8 million vehicles in August under the program, but likely will drop off the rest of the year, although not back to the lows seen early in 2009, Barclays Capital analyst Brian Johnson said in a note.
“We expect sales for the remainder of the year to fall well below August results, but believe momentum from the program as well as the stabilization in the economy and improvement in consumer confidence could boost sales above the 9.5 million average seen in the first half,” Johnson said.
Johnson said the seasonally adjusted annual rate could be in the 10 million unit range in September and 10.5 million vehicles for the fourth quarter.
Among U.S. carmakers, Barclays expects Ford Motor Co sales to be up 53 percent in August from a year earlier. General Motors sales, which were strong in August 2008 due to an incentive program, are expected to be down 9 percent and Chrysler Group LLC sales up 2 percent, it said best payday loan.
For Japanese automakers, Toyota Motor Corp sales are expected to be up 22 percent, Honda Motor Co Ltd sales up 20 percent and Nissan Motor Co Ltd sales up 5 percent, Barclays said.
The top 10 “clunkers” program vehicle sales were dominated by Toyota and Honda, which had three vehicles each on the list, and by Ford with two vehicles.
‘CLUNKERS’ SUPPORT
Dealers submitted 690,114 new vehicle transactions under the “clunkers” program that started in late July and ran out three weeks into August at a cost of about $2.88 billion.
How many of “clunkers” deals landed in August is not completely clear, though U.S. Department of Transportation data suggests roughly 450,000 sales in August and 240,000 in July.
Also unclear is how many of those August deals would have been completed without the incentives, and whether they were pulled forward from the near future.
“Our only concern is how much of that will truly be incremental volumes as opposed to just borrowing from the future,” Rebecca Lindland, director of automotive research at IHS Global Insight, said in an interview.
IHS Global Insight estimated that about 250,000 vehicles were sales that would not otherwise have been made, though that figure could be higher, Lindland said.
David Payne knows well the history of his family’s electrical contracting business. He has seen the business change many times since its start in the 1950s in Flint, Mich., as a company that primarily worked servicing auto plants. He saw his father make aggressive moves to diversify the industrial projects it worked on, which included moving the company to St. Louis.
So it isn’t without precedent that Payne has stepped up and made changes of his own since taking the helm in the mid-1990s.
In 2000, he led the company in buying commercial electrical contractor Crest Electric. That move proved key in stabilizing the company’s workload and earned it larger projects as well, including work at the Lumi
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