How to Invent and Protect Your Invention: A Guide to Patents for Scientists and Engineers

8.1 BIOLOGY MEETS PATENTS

8.1.1 The Supreme Court: Living Things Are Patentable

In 1980, the Supreme Court ruled by a narrow margin of 5 to 4 that “a live human-made microorganism is patentable.” This ruling is certainly among the most important decisions in the Court's long history: It not only spawned new industries (e.g., biotechnology) but also started an avalanche of discussions on the meaning of life and controversial ethical matters. This ruling and its economic and ethical consequences are of immense importance to society at large, and we feel that students in the sciences and engineering should have some appreciation of these issues.

In the early 1970s, Dr. A. Chakrabarty, a microbiologist employed by the General Electric Company, developed a microorganism that was able to digest, and thus eliminate, crude oil spilled by tankers. At the time, several specific strains of Pseudomonas bacteria were known to digest individual components of crude oil (i.e., linear, aliphatic, cycloaliphatic, aromatic, and polynuclear aromatic compounds), but Chakrabarty wanted to create a single “super” microorganism that would break down and ingest all the components of crude oils. He reasoned that this could be done by fusing the genes of four strains of Pseuodomonas bacteria. As he later explained, “I simply shuffled genes, changing bacteria that already existed.” After reducing his conception to practice, Chakrabarty (i.e., GE) filed a patent application on a genetically engineered new ...