Hi Everyone,
I was thinking about the Harvard Mouse case and the discussion of the patentability of life forms and thought about something which wasn’t discussed in the case; could you patent a higher life form if it were made synthetically.
The higher lifeform argument failed to meet the ‘manufacture’ or ‘composition of matter’ criteria for patentability largely because the modified genes were inserted into a pre-existing, natural egg and growing that egg to maturity inside a pre-existing, natural, mouse. In a synthetic lifeform, each part of the lifeform would be created and assembled by a person. In my opinion, this would be much harder to distinguish from other manufacturing processes or other compositions of matter. The argument from Harvard Mouse that this is beyond the scope of what parliament intended composition of matter to mean still might hold true, but I would struggle to see how this would not be a manufacture.
This also isn’t quite as far-fetched as some might think, printing artificial organs is already possible, and synthetic lower life forms have been created.
Communications Law