Should intellectual property holders be allowed to name their patented product, the same exact name as its natural variant? Can one ethically patent a portion of a public domain item, then force the rest of that public domain item out of business – defacto patenting a formerly natural public domain resource?

Moreover, what if that ‘product’ was a pathogen? If I deploy a novel product in such a fashion, which solely as a result of my deployment of that product, threatens the prospective user with harm if they do not thereafter acquire and further propagate that new product – this is called ‘Racketeering’ under 18 U.S.C. § 1961.

In the mid 20th Century, organized crime shifted from its traditional business bases of gambling, prostitution, booze running, drug smuggling, human and weapons trafficking, to more legitimate and prima facia ethical business avenues. As a result, in 1978, Congress enacted the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, or RICO Act as it is called, in order to provide prosecutors with new sets of laws effective at combating these newer forms of quasi-legitimate criminal enterprises.¹

In one of my past projects, the company I led had developed a new way to fabricate a medical treatment intervention. This new method of fabrication neutralized several defects incumbent with the old version of the treatment, and made it both a much healthier and now permanent and life-long solution to the entailed human malady, alleviating much suffering for the patients who needed this new medical technology. This intellectual property bore patentability, given that it was novel, useful, non-obvious to a practitioner in the art, had not been fairly addressed before, and was teachable and sustainable as a technology.² As a result, we issued a barrage of intellectual property protections (both internal and external) per the chart on the right.

Subsequently, we approached several business partners to help us deploy this medical technology for benefit inside medical praxis. What I have outlined here of course is an example of an ethical employment of intellectual property. A condition wherein the technology in question is but one small specialized segment of its market vertical, and as well was actually serving to create a completely new market niche out of non-existence (ex nihilo) – and not necessarily displacing naturally occurring versions of itself into oblivion. In addition, our target user was highly interested in our product because of the novel advantage it afforded them; an advantage which they could not obtain through natural means.

But let us consider for a moment, the hypothetical circumstance wherein our technology provided more than simply those two advantages. What if our technology became so ‘beneficial’, dominant-in-practice, ‘virtuous’ or critically valuable (think ‘selling plywood before a hurricane landfall’), that it served to accomplish several of the perhaps more negative potential ramifications of intellectual property? Let’s outline two hypothetical examples of this species of negative IP condition below – in the forms of racketeering, through predation and extortion. We present the predation form of racketeering first, because it helps shed light into the critical issues involved inside how a market metastasizes under an artificial pathogen threat.

 Racketeering Predation

Intellectual Property Metastasizes Market thru Economy of Scale Exploitation

The intellectual property (IP) technology deployed either enables a better cost-inputs efficiency or enables cartel-enforced economies of scale such that it becomes predatory upon heirloom and naturally occurring species, which are healthier but now cost more to produce. When the market metastasizes, this displacement harms genetic stocks through depletion, human health through lack of nutrition and farming economies through loss of ability to affect margin.

In the example below, the Fructato^TM displaces all 5 varietals of naturally occurring sweet potato from bearing market viability. Yes, these varietals can be grown, however they are not supported as a technology by the metastasized market, and now must be grown at a much greater cost, because of the economies of scale now incumbent in Fructato^TM production and supply. Few real advantages were realized with the Fructato^TM; rather its perception was spun by market entities who were able to propel it into a sufficient critical mass of employment, such that it appeared advantageous versus traditional options. Once all heirloom species are too expensive for farmer to grow, then the cartel using the new tech, starts calling the Fructato^TM the ‘sweet potato’. Thereafter the cartel slowly raises prices and squeezes farmers into foreclosure and forfeiture to underwritten industrial farms – as is happening now in America.

This is predatory market activity – much like a mega Pet-Mart putting an entire nation of mom and pop pet stores out of business through predatory dog food pricing – employing smart Wall Street money backing to bolster the company during the predatory-loss phase, and then raising prices once all the competition has been eliminated – this is illegal trust activity.

 Racketeering Extortion

Artificial Pathogen Metastasizes Market thru Ironically Its Own Artificial Threat

A treatment (Vapox^TM) for the naturally occurring illness Poxolitis, once installed in the human body, causes others around that person being treated, to reside under a threat of developing a similar but artificial/acceleration-mutated version of the pathogen (Poxolitis B) the treatment was designed to counter in the first place. Thereby mandating that family members, classmates and office workers exposed to the person receiving the intellectual property treatment, now are compelled/coerced into having to obtain that same IP from its supplier – because they have inherited an artificial/mutated disease exposure risk because of the mutations induced by the Vapox^TM treatment for that paqthogen in the first place.

These stakeholders are denied their human right to their own pedigree natural immunity asset which results from Poxolits, and must purchase the intellectual property (IP) version of immunity (a predatory product called Vapox^TM) in its place because of the artificial acceleration of Poxolitis mutations. A subscription must now be purchased for immunity to un-natural pathogens Poxolitis B, C, D, etc. However, this is all enacted under an implicit threat created by the profit-making IP holder, solely because of the artificial variant of the pathogen they have broadcast into the market in the first place. The pathogen can be natural or man-made, it really does not matter – as long as it has the ability to mutate in sufficient turnover.

The key unethical practice here, involves conflating in the industry praxis, both the natural immunity and artificial product symptomatology as constituting the same illness (regardless of how mild) – diagnosed by means of the same medical identifier. Once this has been done, racketeering fraud comes into play.

Do such conditions exist today? Yes, in the case of chickens we have placed our entire chicken population at risk of extinction by means of attempting to protect them with a vaccine against Marek disease.³ Chickens are not substantially far enough removed from humans, in order for us to pretend that such a mistake could never befall our vaccination practices. Vaccines present risks on a very large scale, and one day in the casino of vaccines, in our panic over a novel disease we will make a mistake that impacts mankind in ways and to degrees never thought of before.

So in the case of predation, this market metastasization absolutely exists. In the case of extortion, we actually do not possess enough information to know whether or not racketeering conditions exist. However, one must be reminded that wilful ignorance or Nelsonian obfuscation of information surrounding 18 U.S.C. § 1961 – U.S. Code Racketeering, also constitutes racketeering in itself (Section 35). It is our duty as a society and a medical industry, to find out. The way we find out, is to name and track such natural and artificial maladies by means of separate and non-ambiguous identifiers – mandatory in each instance of outbreak/use. Labs must be held accountable for the genetic signatures of the viruses they breed and submit to gain of function study. Such litmus conditions serve to place an ethical cap on the ceiling, limiting the rights and conditions claimable by an intellectual property holder. To broach either of the litmus conditions, serves to constitute a legal threshold under the 1978 RICO Act.

The critical essence of this set of ethics involves the naming and market identity conventions employed regarding novel intellectual property.

To mix the identity of naturally occurring and artificial IP variants, constitutes unethical activity.
If the measles vaccine itself can cause measles, then this derivative intellectual property disease must bear a different name entirely and cannot be registered as a ‘measles outbreak’.

Pathoteering – Racketeering by Means of Artificial Pathogen Threat

What these two hypothetical cases of racketeering serve to elucidate is the principle of racketeering by threat of artificial pathogen. My obfuscation of identity between my novel intellectual property pathogen and the naturally occurring variant may constitute Racketeering on my part, if my novel technology, of its own accord, serves to threaten its prospective users or coerce them into compliance under duress of its deployment. The issue therefore hinges on whether or not the threat which makes the purchase or acquisition of product or illegitimate establishment of market power, involves

      An intellectual property device or element of market power which

           1.  has established user or at-risk stakeholder compulsion into its market prevalence or use,

           2.  is not naturally occurring or is a derivative of a naturally occurring element,

           3.  has displaced a plurality or more of the naturally occurring market, through

                a.  illegal forms market predation,
                b.  a threat or implicit threat of harm to candidate adopters, and/or
                c.  requiring its efficacy, safety, or confirmation of safety be confirmed through its adoption, and

           4.  is ambiguously referred to by the same name as the naturally occurring variant. 

If all four exist, then this establishes the basis for 18 U.S.C. Racketeering.

Durable Franchise

A business product or service which bears a feature in that, as it grows in consumption or employment, it also serves to create a condition by which its criticality grows inside its target specific market or channel – artificially promoting it to the status of category killer or monopoly. An application, refreshment, drug, vaccine, practice or technology standard, which displaces all competing entities or alternatives, or serves to habituate the user into increasing dependency or demand for the product or service over its lifespan.

What we have served to broach here is the critical role of product identity, in the conflation of ethical burdens on the part of companies inside the separate contexts of naturally occurring and synthesized threats. The ethical standards under each circumstance are different. The exercise of enforced medicinals under threat of a naturally occurring pathogen can be ethical. However, once the threat is principally created by a modified/artificial/fabricated agent, then enforcement of that synthesized/derived agent itself, as the solution to a problem which it created in the first place, especially under the auspices of monopoly profit, constitutes 18 U.S.C. § 1961 – U.S. Code Racketeering. Related excerpts from that United States Code follow.

18 U.S.C. § 1961 – U.S. Code – Unannotated Title 18. Crimes and Criminal Procedure § 1961⁴

Section 1951 (Extortion): Interference with commerce by threats or violence

Whoever in any way or degree obstructs, delays, or affects commerce or the movement of any article or commodity in commerce, by robbery or extortion or attempts or conspires so to do, or commits or threatens physical violence to any person or property in furtherance of a plan or purpose…

The term “extortion” means the obtaining of property from another, with his consent, induced by wrongful use of actual or threatened force, violence, or fear, or under color of official right.

Sections 175 – 178 (Biological Harm) : biological weapons

175 (b) Additional Offense.—Whoever knowingly possesses any biological agent, toxin, or delivery system of a type or in a quantity that, under the circumstances, is not reasonably justified by a prophylactic, protective, bona fide research, or other peaceful purpose… In this subsection, the terms “biological agent” and “toxin” do not encompass any biological agent or toxin that is in its naturally occurring environment, if the biological agent or toxin has not been cultivated, collected, or otherwise extracted from its natural source.

(1) – (4) any “biological agent”, “toxin”, “delivery system”, or “vector” which causes “death, disease, or other biological malfunction in a human, an animal, a plant, or another living organism;”

A legislative reality exists in which I am prohibited from litigating the IP-racketeering entity and seeking award damages as a result of their causing my child’s encephalitis or death. I was unable to pursue any recourse on behalf of my child, because the permanent disability encephalitic injury for my son was not able to be confirmed as a diagnosis until he was old enough to be tested for such damage – well past the 3 years of age limitation specified in the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program. The irony is that he cannot get disability either. He is destined to live a life of poverty, working menials jobs – solely because of the malice, oppression and criminal racketeering activity of the part of the pharmaceutical industry. I will work hard to help alleviate inevitable poverty which my child will have to undergo at the hands of these incompetent elites. But I will be damned if I will be silent about it.

But at-risk families like mine can use racketeering and anti-trust laws to protect their loved ones from harm/coercion into being forced to ingest a possibly harm-potent intellectual property product – even if the entailed racketeering is enacted by society at large – and more importantly, even if we are unsure as to the existence of the four conditions above.

In other words, once a vaccine is no longer reasonably justified as a ‘prophylactic or protective’ agent against a naturally occurring microbe – and is now only protecting its coerced/threatened victims against harm imparted by its intellectual-property-derived imitation/variant – and this is clouded by the coercing entities’ or market’s or society’s conflation of the same name in common between the naturally occurring and genetic/modified/derived variant – then compulsory vaccination under this condition has become an act of Racketeering, under 18 U.S.C. § 1961 – U.S. Code.

I cannot seek damages for my child’s injury or death, nor for pharmaceutical company Racketeering under 18 U.S.C. § 1961 – U.S. Code, precisely because of the NCVIA of 1986 (42 U.S.C. §§ 300aa-1 to 300aa-34) legislation, however

I can seek a protective injunction against Racketeering which employs coercion to enforce use of a product under a threat of implicit harm which meets the above four criteria.

The basic premise resides in this, if the disease against which I am now being vaccinated is, even in a remote possibility and even if we do not know, principally a disease which was invented by the actions of any coercing entity to begin with, and I am not aware of this because the same name is used for both the natural and artificial variants of the pathogen – I do not have to comply to such legal action, by law. I also may seek an injunction of such coercive activity under 18 U.S.C. § 1961 – U.S. Code.

I am testing this as my legal delineation between justified vaccination, and unethical vaccination which induces more harm than good. The ‘risk/benefit’ analysis which everyone keeps talking about, yet nobody actually does. I am pro-vaccine, but there is a viable limitation to such virtue, just as there is a context limit to all virtues. We as a society need to face and fathom these ethical boundaries.

Such is also the duty of an ethical skeptic.

The Ethical Skeptic, “Unethical Employment of Intellectual Property”; The Ethical Skeptic, WordPress, 27 Dec 2019; Web, https://theethicalskeptic.com/?p=42337

1. FindLaw.com: Racketeering/RICO; web, 27 Dec 2019, https://criminal.findlaw.com/criminal-charges/racketeering-rico.html
2. Gene Quinn; IP Watchdog: Patentability Overview: When can an Invention be Patented?; 3 Jun 2017; web, https://www.ipwatchdog.com/2017/06/03/patentability-invention-patented/id=84071/
3. Nsikan Akpan, PBS News Hour: This chicken vaccine makes its virus more dangerous; 27 Jul 2015; https://www.pbs.org/newshour/science/tthis-chicken-vaccine-makes-virus-dangerous
4. 1978 RICO Act: Title 18—Crimes and Criminal Procedure; http://www.gpo.gov; https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/USCODE-2009-title18/html/USCODE-2009-title18.htm