OTTAWA, December 5, 2002 (LifeSiteNews.com) – In a 5-4 judgment today, the Supreme Court of Canada opposed the patenting of a genetically altered mouse known as the Harvard mouse. The Canadian Council of Churches (CCC) and the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada (EFC), which intervened jointly in the case praised the decision not to allow the patenting of higher life forms in Canada.
“The extension of patentability to higher life forms would have been an expansion of patent law into new areas of huge significance for public policy in Canada,” said Eric Beresford, of the Canadian Council of Churches. “Such changes need full public debate and should take place in Parliament and not the courts. Harvard University modified life, they did not create it. They cannot own it as something they invented.”“Life forms are not tools or inventions, mice or humans are not technologies that should be owned by corporations or institutions” commented Bruce Clemenger, director of the EFC’s Centre for Faith and Public Life. “This decision reflects a respect for higher life forms.” The case was between the Canadian Commissioner of Patents and the Fellows of Harvard University. Harvard University altered the genetic composition of a mouse so that it and its offspring would develop cancer more frequently and predictably- hence its nickname “the oncomouse.” The Fellows of the university applied for a patent not only on the process by which the mouse is modified, but also over the gene introduced. This patent would apply both to the mouse itself and all of its offspring that contain the oncogene. The Canadian Commissioner of Patents granted patents over the process and the genetic composition of the mouse but denied it over the creature itself. The Federal Court Trial Division upheld the Commissioner’s decision. The Federal Court of Appeal, in a two to one decision, overturned previous decisions and granted the patent on the mouse itself.
In its decision, the Supreme Court said that the Patent Act covered non-living mechanistic products or processes, not higher life forms. The Court stated, “Since patenting higher life forms would involve a radical departure from the traditional patent regime, and since the patentability of such life forms is a highly contentious matter that raises a number of extremely complex issues, clear and unequivocal legislation is required for higher life forms to be patentable.”
The EFC and the CCC said that the patenting of animals objectified life and created the possibility of future human patenting. See the CP coverage at: https://www.canada.com/health/story.html?id=%7BCA0F0126-B3AE-435D-8078-1DF932A51268%7D