Comments on: Patent and Penicillin

By: Robert

Robert — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 12:27:30 +0000

Flemming discovered it by chance, but did not persue it at all (he did write the observation). It took Florey and the Oxford team to isolate the drug and perform clinical tests. Flemming then store the limelight. The team had produced some penicillin (more complex story), and word was getting out a little. Then one of Flemmings close friends fell ill, he asked Florey for the drug. This was early days where mass production was not in effect. He took the penicillin (all of it) treated his friend and invited all the newspapers along for the glory, not mentioning Florey and the teama. The team had been reluctant to advertise this cure as the number of letters of people begging them to treat loved ones were too many.

As for patenting the drug. Florey and Heatley (my grandfather, 3rd member in Oxford team), went to America because in war torn Britain, all efforts were towards the war, ie making munitions etc. Therefore they went to America to teach them about this drug and how to grow it.

Chain was angry that they did not decide to patent the drug, although this was during the Second World War, when there was a huge need of an antibiotic. This is one of the biggest factors contributing to why it was not patented, aloing with the fact it was hard enough to convince the american pharmaceutical firms to grow/harvest/purify it let alone if there was a patent on it.

By: Intellectual Property Strategies for Collaborative Innovation | Open Science Summit

Wed, 12 May 2010 23:33:42 +0000

[...] Systems Stifle, Not Promote, Innovation The Enclosure of Science and Technology: Two Case Studies Patent and Penicillin Quick Sketch of a New Global Virus Sharing System Why User-Driven Innovation Should Not Be Confused [...]

By: Nick Robinson

Nick Robinson — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 00:18:26 +0000

Hi there,

I saw your blog post very interesting.
i am Nick Robinson,a community member at Patents DOT Com(a comprehensive free patent
search engine).Will like to talk(through email) to you,is this the right time to talk about or should we talk during weekends ?

Regards,
Nick Robinson

E-nickrbson@gmail.com

By: Peter

Peter — Fri, 23 Jun 2006 02:32:03 +0000

There were US-made Merlin engines (in the P51). I’m told US-built Merlins consistently rated 50 HP below the Rolls Royce ones.

By: P.M.Lawrence

P.M.Lawrence — Fri, 23 Jun 2006 02:01:24 +0000

The penicillin story gets even more subtle. Further to your point 3, those US patents on mass fermentation that were granted actually served to reduce the overall pace of innovation.

The full story includes the following. As with nuclear research, much small scale stuff had been done in the UK before the USA even entered the war. Subsequently, most such efforts were transferred to the USA both because of uncommitted production facilities and because of greater startegic depth (and thus safety).

It wasn’t a case of the British being unable to take things forward, but startegic tradeoffs. After all, US technology was always of a lower quality than European at that point (the USA couldn’t make the Merlin engine, for instance, since that was not designed for large production runs).

Anyhow, penicillin expertise was transferred on the condition that Britain would benefit from further development. No paperwork was signed, just as with atomic research, since it was thought that it would slow down necessary co-operation between allies.

However the result was that the US pharmaceutical industry claimed correctly that it had done the work, incorrectly claiming that it had done all the work (such as finding the false trails). The penicillin patents actually represent in part a rip-off of unacknowledged prior art that had been classified during the war.