This chapter considers the law governing the patentability of human genes, plants, and animals. Here one can no longer stay at the objective level of scientific findings and patent laws, but must consider the broader issues of ethics, social policy, and politics. Many persons, for different reasons, are opposed to the granting of patents for living organisms; the same persons believe that someone who patents a human gene somehow acquires control of human life, or even of an individual from whose tissue the gene was isolated. Where the invention can be useful in the diagnosis or treatment of disease, the majority of the public may accept the need for such patents, but opposition to genetic modification of food crops and to patents on the resulting transgenic plants is more widespread.
Patenting of Human Genes and Living Organisms. Edited by F. Vogel, and R. Grunwald. Springer-Verlag. 1994. 244 pages. Price DM80.00, öS 624.00, sFr 80.00. ISBN 3 540 58148 0.
