Kraig Biocraft Laboratories Inc (KBLB)

[jazz710]

A Patent Analogy

The Problem: There's a disease that causes people's toes to fall off. Clinicians have determined that the cause of the toe loss is a DNA mutation. The DNA codes for a faulty protein that cuts off blood supply to the toes, causing them to die and fall off.

Company A: Company A makes a daily dose pill that when eaten, causes the bad protein to misfold and be destroyed. They patent the pill.

Company B: Company B discovers that extreme heat will cause the protein to break apart. They market heated socks, and toes stay attached. They patent the sock.

Both Company A and B came up with a solution to the problem of toe loss. Neither one would be protected by a patent because the mechanism of the treatments are completely non-overlapping. You can't blanketly patent "Stopping toes from falling off" the same way KBLB can't patent "putting spider DNA into silkworms".

Spider DNA of various sources can get into silkworms through numerous mechanisms, only one or two of which KBLB has patented. KBLB picked their path, and hopefully it holds up long enough to get to market. Nobody is showing strong competition now, but that's the nature of technological innovation. A discovery tomorrow in the lab, combined with more textiles knowledge than KBLB started with (let alone one of the other companies that already exists getting better science) could put KBLB at risk.

Is KBLB in the lead right now? Possibly/Probably depending on your world outlook. Are they guaranteed first to market? Absolutely not. That's not bashing, that's reality until they make a marketable product.