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PATENTING NEW FORMS OF ANIMAL LIFE:
IS NATURE JUST A FORM OF PRIVATE PROPERTY?
By Jeremy Rifkin
from the NY Times
Under a radical new policy that it adopted in April, the
Patent and Trademark Office now will consider patenting all forms
of animals on earth, with the exception of homo sapiens. Any
animal engineered with characteristics not attainable through
classical breeding techniques is now considered a "human
invention," qualifying as "patentable subject matter."
The social, economic and cultural consequences of this
regulatory edict are frighteningly clear in the language the
Patent Office uses to defend its new policy. Patent officials
argue that, for patent purposes, all of life can now be regarded
as a "manufacture or composition of matter." If a researcher
implants a foreign gene into an animal's genetic code -- for
example a human growth hormone gene into a pig -- the genetically
altered animal is considered a human invention, like a toaster,
automobile or tennis ball.
In economic terms, the Patent Office decision signals the
beginning of a long-term transition out of the age of fossil
fuels and petrochemicals into the age of biological resources.
The world economy is shifting from industrial technologies to
biotechnologies and the patent Office decision provides the
necessary government guarantee that the raw materials of the
biotechnology age -- that is, all living things on the planet --
can now be exploited for commercial gain by chemical,
pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies.
Thus, the new patent policy transforms the status of the
blotic community from a common heritage to private preserve of
major corporations. In years to come, multinational corporations
will increasingly joust among themselves for ownership and
control of the planet's gene pool, patenting everything that
lives, breaths and moves. The battle to control the gene pool
and the genetic age began in earnest last week.
The new patent policy probably will have its most dramatic
impact in agriculture. By extending patent protection to all
forms of animals, the Patent Office has provided the chemical,
pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies with the incentive to
complete their takeover of American agriculture, a process that
has been gaining momentum over the past two decades. In the past
10 years, the chemical companies have quietly taken over the
world's seed companies, guaranteeing them a lock on the
domesticated plants of the planet. Now, they are in position to
take over animal husbandry.
For hog farmers, dairymen, sheep ranchers and cattlemen,
this week's decision is likely to touch off a bitter struggle
with the big corporations, with the survival of the family farm
hanging in the balance. Will farmers be forced to buy patented
animals from the multinational corporations in the years ahead?
Will they have to pay a royalty for every piglet and calf they
birth? Will they have to make special arrangements with the
corporations everytime they want to sell part of their herd?
A new and insidious form of tenant farming looms on the
horizon. This time around, however, the new farmers of the
Genetic Age will be leasing their plants an animals as well as
their land.
The shock with which last week's decision was received shows
that the policy has touched a raw nerve. Patenting all forms of
life! For many of us, this decision is a harbinger of a brave
new future where pigs and primates, dogs and cats, birds and
beasts are suddenly reclassified, stripped of their species
integrity, robbed of their special biological bonds and reduced
to the level of chemical compositions.
The specter of the new policy is haunting, indeed,
mindboggling. A handful of non-elected bureaucrats in a
Government agency, sealed off and isolated from public
participation, have taken it upon themselves to reduce all living
things to a new lowly status of "manufactured processes."
Even human genetic traits are now patentable, according to
the new ruling. Any number of human genes can now be transferred
to other animals. The engineered animals, with human genes
functioning in their genetic code , can then be patented. Of
course, patent officials were quick to point out this week that,
for now constitutional safeguards prevent homo sapiens from
becoming patentable subject matter.
The genetic engineering revolution has been growing
exponentially for over a decade, and as it has, two issues have
surfaced repeatedly: One, the need to facilitate rapid
commercial exploitation of genetically engineered processes and
products, and two, the ethical and social considerations in
engineering and redesigning the genetic code. Now, these two
issues are joined in direct and open confrontation. Is all life
to be redefined as a manufactured process subject to patenting
and ownership by private companies? Or are living things to be
spared this ultimate form of technological reductionism?
The resolution of these issues will affect generations to
come, establishing the context for how our children's children
will define life. Will future generations come to perceive life
as mere chemical, manufactured processes or inventions of no
greater value than industrial products? Or will we act to
respect life, by resisting the ultimate temptation to turn living
things into pure utility?
Ultimately, the patenting question will be decided by
Congress. Will our elected officials meekly accept the edict
handed down by the Patent Office? Or will ethical concerns
override commercial pressures, leading Congress to prohibit the
patenting of animals? The American public will be watching
carefully to see how they respond to this historic issue.