ridiculous patents standing in the way of health professionals and doctors who provide the best care possible. Beyond the basics, such as gene patenting, the idea that diagnostic tests are patentable is a terrible thing for anyone with a sense of decency when it comes to trying to keep people healthy. But apparently, the problem does not stop there, and the medical community is suddenly faced with some doctors from the application of copyright law to block aggressive competition

of diagnostic tests become available.

The story comes from Dr. John C. Newman and Robin Feldman lawyer at the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine, which tell the story of the Mini Mental State Examination (MMSE). A simple screening test point 30 was first published in 1975, essentially become a de facto standard was used (and published!) Wide. As the authors, was available in textbooks, field guides and websites -. "Saved by residents and medical students countless", yet it sounds like a useful tool that has been put to good use. But then, decades after its creation, the authors of the diagnostic test discovered the copyright. And that's where the problems started:

In 2000, its authors, Marshal Folstein, Folstein Susan and Paul McHugh, began to take steps to enforce their rights, primarily the transfer of the right Copyright minimental, a company founded Folstein, then in 2001 to grant an exclusive worldwide license for the assessment of psychological resources (PAR) of publication, distribution and management of intellectual property rights. A licensed version of the MMSE can now be purchased from PAR $ 1.23 per test. The MMSE form is gradually disappearing in textbooks, websites, toolkits and clinics.

clinical response to this "lock" has been muted. A few commentators have expressed concern over the continued use of a tool, which is now in training or on the implications for developing countries, echoing debates on patented pharmaceuticals. In our experience, many physicians are not aware of copyright restrictions on the MMSE or simply ignored, despite the risk of copyright infringement.

But then, in March 2011, a promising new tool for cognitive screening would be available through "open access", the Sweet 16 - an assessment of 16 Items in reflection, learning and memory developed by Harvard University Tamara Fong - was removed from the Internet at the request of the RAP in a dispute over copyright apparent. The Sweet 16 has three guidance and memories, like the MMSE, with a digit span element. This action is unprecedented for a clinical assessment tool in the night, cast a chill in academia, clearly, clinicians and researchers can no longer live in blissful ignorance of copyright.

is difficult to see how this is not the abuse of copyright at the end. The copyright on the MMSE is not the "idea" of a "3 recall the subject," but the specific expression. If you look online there are different versions of the MMSE that you can find easily and seems that the content in question

really

base. For example, "the subject of three tests of memory" seems to consist of the following:

Name three objects: one second to say each. Then ask the patient all three after you have said. Give 1 point for each correct answer. Then repeat the process until he / she learns all three. Have evidence and records.


Then a few questions later, he said you should ask the patient to repeat the three objects. It's very simple - an address. This suggests a similar test in itself should not diminish at all this does not use any "creative expression" of the original (even if But, if only to go beyond the issue of copyright by the fact that Marshal Folstein, Folstein Susan and Paul McHugh with partners, Psychological Assessment Resources (PAR), use copyright to stifle the process important and useful for the diagnosis of cognitive states, simply must be
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