> After nearly 18 years of appeals up through the courts, the Supreme Court > of Canada today decided, in a 5-4 split, that a higher life form is not > patentable because it is not a "manufacture" or "composition of matter" > within the meaning of "invention" in the Patent Act. Harvard had been > trying to claim patent protection on the process by which so-called > 'oncomice' are produced and the end product of the process. . . . > The court's finding can be summed thusly: regardless of whether the Court > thinks the oncomouse is deserving of patent protection, the language of the > Act does not permit it and the significant values implicated by such a > finding dissuades the Court from reading in that intent. It is up to > Parliament to situate the line between lower life forms (which are > patentable) and higher life forms, including humans, with regards to > patentability.
And knowing Parliament, it will take them about ten years and three royal commissions before they can figure out what positition will offend the least number of people, then they'll rush it through the House as quickly as possible. :-) But is it moral to patent living life forms? Somehow, that concept just makes me uneasy. But on the other hand, companies and individuals will refuse to do the research necessary to save countless lives if they can't protect their (considerable) investments. It's a muddle... Kevin Street > ------------------------------------------------------------------------- > POLITECH -- Declan McCullagh's politics and technology mailing list > You may redistribute this message freely if you include this notice. > To subscribe to Politech: http://www.politechbot.com/info/subscribe.html > This message is archived at http://www.politechbot.com/ > Declan McCullagh's photographs are at http://www.mccullagh.org/ > ------------------------------------------------------------------------- > Like Politech? Make a donation here: http://www.politechbot.com/donate/ > Recent CNET News.com articles: http://news.search.com/search?q=declan > ------------------------------------------------------------------------- _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
