Comments on: CAS Discourages Using SciFinder to Help Curate Wikipedia Structures and CAS Numbers

By: Peter Delashmit

Peter Delashmit — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 15:09:23 +0000

I have been following this debate over open source in general on the web & in C & Eng news weekly.

I am a product development chemist. I have been a member of the ACS for 8 years. I pay my own membership fees because the company management doesn’t particular see this as important. They put the money into Sales & marketing, the lab limps by, so to speak.

Still, most of us are in science for the love it it ( I hope) and so we make do.
For all the years I have been in the ACS, truthfully, it has been of little or no benefit to me except the local section get togethers peroidically.

I have to assume there are others like myself, that just don’t feel like writing
and so hopefully, some of those people will read this post and voice their opinion.

The prices that the ACS wants to access literature (after paying membership fees) , is oriented toward instituions and organizations that are way above what most companies in industry are going to pay. So, let’s say the individual is willing to pay out of pocket. No way can they afford the ACS prices. Think of us like teachers that use their own money to get the kids school supplies.

I love the open source stuff & I understand the ACS needs to pay it’s bills, but I think it is alienating alot of members & non-members in the science community
by taking a hard line approach to sharing scientific information. It makes them appear to be more intersted in money than science.

By: Freie Katalogdaten und Erschließungsmittel « Jakoblog — Das Weblog von Jakob Voß

Wed, 12 Mar 2008 22:57:50 +0000

[...] eingeschränkt nutzbar sind. Ein Beispiel für ein nicht nutzbares Erschließungssystem nennt Anthony Williams der von Peter kommentiert wird: Die American Chemical Society (ACS) verbietet es, die CAS-Nummern [...]

By: John Shockcor

John Shockcor — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 19:16:03 +0000

This is just another example of how the American Comical Society is losing its credibility. I have for years seen this trend toward bureaucracy and commercial gain in all aspects of their activities. They are supposed to be enabling the science of chemistry, not hindering it.

By: Peter W

Peter W — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 18:08:03 +0000

I must of missed something. CAS Reg Numbers have value? I have done a lot of purchasing, searching, and using chemicals. I never cared what the CAS Reg Number was. (Well, not until someone told the NJ DEP chemicals needed them.)

I should presume that no one would care what a sample’s notebook number or company ID number was as long as they knew its structure. Would it matter to anyone what the system was that any company used to give an ID to a sample? (Sure, I understand they would, because companies use the ID without the structure to evaluate compounds outside of the company. What is the compound?)

CAS Reg Numbers were useful for CAS to identify compounds as unique entities. When you searched in Beilstein, in German, or Berichte, or Bull. Soc. chim. France and deconstructed the chemical name into a structure, there was always some uncertainty as to whether the compound you drew was correct. CAS did provide a second opinion and by linking it with a CAS Reg Number, at least it helped to correlate with another name. However, practically speaking, it didn’t confirm the structure nor the chemistry.

Now, it is so easy to do structure and substructure searches. Do people really search Aldrich by CAS Reg Numbers? (This is a chemistry thread, right?) If I can find the structure, do I still need the ID? I thought the structure was the universal concordance, not the database ID given to it. Wikipedia doesn’t enter compounds under their CAS Registry numbers, do they? So, if the preference for finding a compound in Wikipedia is a name and it gives a verifiable structure, of what value is an abstract ID number?

Now, if this argument was about Smiles, that would be a whole different kettle of fish.

Indeed, it is paradoxical, if you don’t like CAS and their policies, don’t use their Registry Numbers. The more they might be used to substitute for real names and structures, the more valued they become. The less they are used and correlated, the less value they become. I thought it was going to be very ironic if everyone used aliases in a discussion of a universal identity of a compound, but not so.

By: Physchim62

Physchim62 — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 12:27:14 +0000

I trust that the chemical community will treat this missive from CAS with the contempt it deserves.
*It is clear that CAS places the maximization of its revenue above the provision of chemical information. What does CAS object to here? That researchers use its products to find chemical information, or that this information is published? In either case, its stance is both ludicrous and profoundly anti-scientific.
*In a discussion about CAS registry numbers, it should be pointed out that these are used by many governments and international organizations (see, e.g., 29 CFR 1910.1000) and innumerable commercial firms (e.g. chemical suppliers). Indeed, they would not be interesting for WP if they were not so widely used! CAS tacitly admits that it cannot control this use through copyright law, as has been discussed at length both on WP, which is why it has to resort to contract law in the form of the draconian license terms it imposes for access to its databases.
*However CAS is effectively a monopoly supplier of much chemical information, as can be seen from the prices it manages to charge for access to its databases. The restrictions it purports to impose of the reuse of its “product” would appear to breach anti-trust legislation on both sides of the Atlantic. Users of CAS databases in the European Union can take heart from Art. 8.1 of the Database Directive (96/6/EC):
**“The maker of a database which is made available to the public in whatever manner may not prevent a lawful user of the database from extracting and/or re-utilising insubstantial parts of its contents, evaluated qualitatively and/or quantitatively, for any purposes whatsoever.”
I call on CAS to make it clear that the information contained in its databases may be freely reused in accordance with the principles of chemical science and the laws of the jurisdictions in which it operates.

By: Unilever Centre for Molecular Informatics, Cambridge - petermr’s blog » Blog Archive » Compounds, substances and identifiers

Sun, 09 Mar 2008 14:14:44 +0000

[...] has been discussion recently (e.g. CAS Discourages Using SciFinder to Help Curate Wikipedia Structures and CAS Numbers and the Wikipedia Project: CAS Validation page) about the use of CAS identifiers and possible [...]

By: The Curation of Almost 5000 Structures on Wikipedia at The ChemConnector Blog - Observations and Musings for the Chemistry Community

Sun, 09 Mar 2008 04:58:49 +0000

[...] recently commented on the statement made by Eric Shively of CAS about the CAS Validation Project going on at Wikipedia. The basic premise of the work is the need [...]

By: Unilever Centre for Molecular Informatics, Cambridge - petermr’s blog » Blog Archive » What to use as a the primary key for chemicals?

Sun, 09 Mar 2008 04:39:27 +0000

[...] be found on most commercially supplied substances. Yet, as described by Peter Murray-Rust and Antony Williams recently you can’t look these up without paying for them. And indeed by recording them for your own [...]

By: will

will — Sat, 08 Mar 2008 16:32:57 +0000

First of all, I have no legal training either so this is certainly not legal advice.

What I do (think) I know:

1) When using a CAS database, their terms and conditions rule (unless they contradict).

2) CAS no.s are identifiers. Without the substance details, they are useless, and that is what makes an identifier an identifier.

3) Identifiers (titles, citations, and … CAS no.s) can be freely redistributed as long as trademark is respected (i.e. CAS are credited or not discredited as the trademark holder)

4) Joerg: “translation of a structure” >>
And a structure (or substance) is a fact. The translation methodology is the copyrightable stuff not its output.

5) Egon: “curation can only happen against the database itself” >>
Ideally yes. But I think chemical companies are still good sources of info. Dont know what you think but the Sigma-Aldrich catalogue is where most go for chemical data as far as I see. CAS have to have their numbers at the chemical companies (usably accurately) or they have no value in industry.

By: Science in the open » What to use as a the primary key for chemicals?

Science in the open » What to use as a the primary key for chemicals? — Sat, 08 Mar 2008 16:11:57 +0000