Comment & Debate
David Koepsell. “The Case Against Gene Patents.” Practicing Law Institute. June 13, 2009: “gene patents violate the patent law because what they claim as patentable is a part of nature, and thus neither new nor non-obvious.
[…]Laws of nature are inherent in nature. We do not invent them, they are part of the fabric of everything. Gravity is an example, the laws of evolution are another, as are the laws of relativity. Scientists devise explanations for these lawsn that we call “theories”, and attempt to confirm or falsify them through experiment. As we acquire a better understanding of natural processes and products, we become better equipped to manipulate our world, create new things that nature never made, and bring our inventiveness to bear on nature to make our lives better. This is, in sum, the purpose of intellectual property law: to further the progress of the useful arts and sciences. But if we try to do so by allowing governmentally-sponsored monopolies (as intellectual property ultimately is not a free-market device) we must be careful to not stifle innovation by granting monopolistic rights over laws of nature. Instead, we should grant rights only to those things that are the products of human thought and creativity. The application, for instance, of the laws of gravity to some specific way of moving people up and down between floors. The splicing of a genetic segment into a creature in such a way that nature never devised to make an entirely new creature that might, for instance, eat oil, is inventive. Finding a gene that has evolved over millenia is not.”
Michael Crichton. “Patenting Life.” New York Times (Op-Ed). February 13, 2007: “Humans share mostly the same genes. The same genes are found in other animals as well. Our genetic makeup represents the common heritage of all life on earth. You can’t patent snow, eagles or gravity, and you shouldn’t be able to patent genes, either. Yet by now one-fifth of the genes in your body are privately owned.
The results have been disastrous. Ordinarily, we imagine patents promote innovation, but that’s because most patents are granted for human inventions. Genes aren’t human inventions, they are features of the natural world.”