December 05, 2002
Canada's Supreme Court rejects Patent for the Harvard Mouse

The supreme court rejected the patent for the Harvard mouse.

By manipulating its genes they produced a mouse whose descendants would be more susceptible to tumours, facilitating clinical work and producing faster experimental results.

I'm all for genetically modifying life forms, I think a lot of cool things could be done with this technology. But actually patenting the life form itself rather than the process that created it, well I think that's fraught with problems and not a good idea. They should just try and maximize their profits while its fresh and new, and then move on to the next project. Instead they try to patent everything under the sun and then sue anybody who even remotely infringes upon one of their millions of patents, its ridiculous. And then there's the games drug companies are playing to shut out generic drugs and the patented canola that pollinated some poor farmer's field so he had to pay some big agricultural firm for use of their patent. This whole patent thing has got out of control, dammit!

Posted by Fungii at December 05, 2002 07:35 PM | TrackBack
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