How a Plant is Not Like a Watch
Having already looked at the question of why people can’t patent themselves, it’s time to branch out across the evolutionary tree and ask: “what’s the big deal with patenting genetically-modified plants?”
One reason this has been a contentious issue is the trickiness of figuring out what, exactly, has been patented.
Is it:
a) just the inserted transgene, or
b) the whole plant?
This question was one of the topics I explored in a final paper for a senior-year elective in property law. In the course of my research, I came across a review (authored by Nathan Busch) which compared the insertion of a transgene in a plant to the “mere” addition of a lever to a watch, based on the finding below from an old court case:
“The inventor of the patent lever, without doubt, added a very useful improvement to it; but his right to a patent could not be more extensive than his invention. The patent could not cover the whole machine as improved, but barely the actual improvement.”
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