Lawyers dispute patents on animals and plants
Duke University, USA The Chronicle, by Hon Lung Chu Nov 12, 2007
EDITED

Apples and oranges may soon be patented - unless lawmakers and researchers learn more about the ethics of plant and animal use.
That was one message from the Animals and Bioengineering Conference, held at the School of Law. The conference brought together attorneys, judges, scientists and ethicists to discuss the use of GMOs in commercial and research settings. Judge Michel Bastarache, puisne justice of the Supreme Court of Canada, criticized the court for the decisions of the Monsanto Canada Inc. v. Schmeiser case, which he said implies that a higher lifeform is patentable.
In 2004, the court ruled in favor of Monsanto when the company sued Percy Schmeiser, a farmer who used its genetically modified seeds - spread to his fields from neighboring farms-to produce plants. "The [Canadian] Patent Office has always held that higher-life forms are not patentable, for over 100 years" Bastarache said. "The ruling introduces indirectly a new obsession rule ... [that] the infusion of every seed or speck of pollen in the crop of someone else, renders Monsanto a co-owner of every plant."
He noted that the patents are used for commercial exploitation, rather than to better the world through inventions.
"The majority in this case held that the purpose of the statutory monopoly, granted by the patent act, is to protect the patentee's business interest," Bastarache said. "The use of the plant, which contains a patented element, constitutes an infringement in every case where the invention is significant to the commercial interests of the defendant."

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