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Indirect benefits to scientists from CIRM: direct hosing of California taxpayers?

By Lawrence B. Ebert, Esq.

Don C. Reed made a comment to an earlier IPBiz post concerning whether or not Shinya Yamanaka accepted a CIRM grant in August 2007, as reported on californiastemcellreport:

As to which scientists directly or indirectly received benefits from CIRM, I would urge all concerned to go to the source-- the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine.

IPBiz notes there are at least two points the reader should note.

#1. If the reports in August 2007 are correct, Yamanaka's current employer, Gladstone, specifically is not allowing Yamanaka to be funded by CIRM BECAUSE OF the problematic intellectual property policies of CIRM. Thus, "all concerned" should be asking Gladstone, not CIRM, what is happening and why.

#2. Although californiastemcellreport, in including text of Yamanaka accepting a CIRM grant in August 2007 explicitly is talking about a DIRECT benefit, Mr. Reed now talks about "indirect" benefits. California taxpayers ought to pay a great deal of attention to this distinction. It may well be that Dr. Yamanaka is benefitting INDIRECTLY from CIRM. More importantly, it may well be that Gladstone and/or Yamanaka are retaining intellectual property rights to the inventions which may INDIRECTLY benefit from California money. In this view, California taxpayers pay for facilities which help other entities obtain intellectual property rights. This is sort of a "taxation without representation" theme.

Mr. Reed also noted: David Jensen's blog is frequently critical of the CIRM, and we often disagree. But his writing always deserves serious consideration.

IPBiz observes that the issue is NOT that Mr. Jensen is (or is not) frequently critical of CIRM. The issue is in getting the facts straight. IPBiz does not believe that californiastemcellreport has gotten the facts straight on intellectual property issues at CIRM. The Yamanaka matter is one example, but not the only one, wherein there is a problem.

Note other relevant IPBiz posts, including

http://ipbiz.blogspot.com/2008/02/on-absence-of-evidence-that-yamanaka.html

http://ipbiz.blogspot.com/2008/02/to-don-c-reed-on-getting-facts-straight.html#comments

http://ipbiz.blogspot.com/2007/09/steven-edwards-got-into-some-ip.html

http://ipbiz.blogspot.com/2007/08/proposition-71-let-1000-langleys-bloom.html

Full post as published by IPBiz on February 04, 2008 (boomark / email).