Good call Lola, my eyes have been staring at the microbalance too  
long.  I thought it was May 2009.  Thank you.

While the article may be old, the Patent (#20090042304) was applied  
for on February 12, 2009. The patent is extensive covering most of the  
common stable isotopes (H, C, O, N) and needing to be combined with  
one trace element (Ca, Cu, Fe, K, Mg, Mn, Na, P, Sr, V, Zn) or  
elemental ratio (e.g. C/N) and specific to food commodities  
(unprocessed foods including fish, grains, fruits and fowl).

There are university and college isotope labs that depend on  
contracted samples to keep their labs running, and so while maybe not  
a cause for panic, the patent and its implications should certainly be  
examined closely and understood. At the very least, we will all  
understand patent law a little better (as if we have nothing better to  
do!).

Interestingly, this patent (#20090042304) alludes to two other,  
earlier patents, filed in 2006 and 2007:

"[0001]This application is a continuation-in-part of International  
Application No. PCT/US2007/009682, filed on Apr. 20, 2007, which  
claims the benefit of the earlier filing date of U.S. Provisional  
Application No. 60/793,909, filed Apr. 21, 2006, both of which are  
incorporated herein by reference in their entirety."

I'll be taking a look at these when I have more time. Until then,  
perhaps someone could contact Dr. Anderson offline and get her take on  
it or invite her to post here? It may be that she is required by her  
university or funding agency to patent her research.  Who knows....

Cheers,
Nathan English


On Apr 30, 2009, at 4:07 PM, Lola Oliver wrote:

> I notice that the date on the release is 2006, and I could not find  
> any mention of a patent in it.  Certainly the manufacturers of our  
> IRMS machines would have a few things to say about anyone trying to  
> patent these methods!  I think this may not be as alarming as it  
> sounded at first, especially considering the publication date.
>
> .
>