The foregoing decision was decided by the Supreme Court by only a 5 to 4 vote.Do less-developed nations agree with the majority or the minority? Why? And has the development of artificial life formsbeen encouraged bythe SupremeCourt's decision? Is this a good thing? What would have happened to the Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico without crude oil-ingesting organisms?
BACKGROUND AND FACTS The question before us in this case is a narrow one After genetically engineering a bacterium capable of of statutory interpretation requiring us to construe 35 breaking down crude oil, Ananda Chakrabarty sought U.S.C. $ 101, which provides: "Whoever invents or to patent his creation under Title 35 U.S. Code Section discovers any new and useful process, machine, 101, which states that "[whoever invents or discovers manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent composition of matter, or any new and useful improve- thereof, subject to the conditions and requirements of ment thereof, may obtain a patent... ." The U.S. Patent this title." Specifically, we must determine whether Office (PTO) rejected a claim to the bacterium itself on respondent's microorganism constitutes a "manufac the grounds that living things are not patentable under ture" or "composition of matter" within the meaning of Section 101. The Court of Customs and Patent Appeals the statute. reversed the PTO's decision and the U.S. Supreme In cases of statutory construction we begin, of Court agreed to hear Diamond's appeal. The Court was course, with the language of the statute. And "unless faced with the question of whether the creation of a otherwise defined, words will be interpreted as taking live, human-made organism was patentable under Title their ordinary, contemporary common meaning." We 35 U.S.C. Section 101. have also cautioned that courts "should not read into the patent laws limitations and conditions which the CHIEF JUSTICE BURGER legislature has not expressed." In 1972, respondent Chakrabarty, a microbiologist, filed Guided by these canons of construction, this Court a patent application, assigned to the General Electric has read the term "manufacture" in $ 101 in accor- Co. The application asserted 36 claims related to dance with its dictionary definition to mean "the Chakrabarty's invention of "a bacterium from the production of articles for use from raw or prepared genus Pseudomonas containing therein at least two materials by giving to these materials new forms, stable energy-generating plasmids, each of said plas- qualities, properties, or combinations, whether by mids providing a separate hydrocarbon degradative hand-labor or by machinery." Similarly, "composition pathway." This human-made, genetically engineered of matter" has been construed consistent with its bacterium is capable of breaking down multiple common usage to include "all compositions of two or components of crude oil. Because of this property, more substances and ... all composite articles, whether which is possessed by no naturally occurring bacteria, they be the results of chemical union, or of mechanical Chakrabarty's invention is believed to have significant mixture, or whether they be gases, fluids, powders or value for the treatment of oil spills ... . The patent solids." In choosing such expansive terms as "manu- examiner allowed [some] claims ..., but rejected claims facture" and "composition of matter," modified by the for the bacteria. His decision rested on two grounds: (1) comprehensive "any," Congress plainly contemplated that microorganisms are "products of nature," and (2) that the patent laws would be given wide scope. that as living things they are not patentable subject The relevant legislative history also supports a matter under 35 U.S.C. 5 101 ... . The Constitution broad construction. The Patent Act of 1793, authored grants Congress broad power to legislate to "promote by Thomas Jefferson, defined statutory subject matter the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for as "any new and useful art, machine, manufacture, or limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive composition of matter, or any new or useful improve- Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries." Art. ment [thereof]." Act of Feb. 21, 1793, $ 1. The Act 1, 5 8, cl. 8. The patent laws promote this progress by embodied Jefferson's philosophy that "ingenuity offering inventors exclusive rights for a limited period should receive a liberal encouragement. " Subsequent as an incentive for their inventiveness and research patent statutes in 1836, 1870, and 1874 employed this efforts ... . The authority of Congress is exercised in the same broad language. In 1952, when the patent laws hope that "[the productive effort thereby fostered will were re-codified, Congress replaced the word "art" have a positive effect on society through the introduc- with "process," but otherwise left Jefferson's language tion of new products and processes of manufacture intact. The Committee Reports accompanying the 1952 into the economy, and the emanations by way of Act inform us that Congress intended statutory subject increased employment and better lives for our matter to "include anything under the sun that is made citizens." by man."continued This is not to suggest that $ 101 has no limits or that products of nature, whether living or not, and human- it embraces every discovery. The laws of nature, made inventions. Here, respondent's microorganism is physical phenomena, and abstract ideas have been the result of human ingenuity and research. Hence, the held not patentable. Thus, a new minera discovered in passage of the Plant Patent Act affords the Government the earth or a new plant found in the wild is not poddns ou patentable subject matter. Likewise, Einstein could not Nor does the passage of the 1970 Plant Variety patent his celebrated law that E=mos; nor could Protection Aer support the Government's position. Newton have patented the lew of gravity. Such As the Government acknowledges, sexually repro- discoveries are "manifestations of ... nature, free to all duced plants were not included under the 1930 Act men and reserved exclusively to none." because new varieties could not be reproduced true- Judged in this light, respondent's micro organism to-type through seedlings. By 1970, however, it was plainly qualifies as patentable subject matter. His claim generally recognized that true-to-type reproduction is not to a hitherto unknown natural phenomenon, but to a was possible and that plant patent protection was non-naturally occurring manufacture or composition of therefore appropriate ... . matter-a product of human ingenuity " having a distinctive To buttress his argument, the petitioner, with the name, character [and) use ... . * Here ... , the patentee has support of amicus. points to grave risks that may be produced a new bacterium with markedly different generated by research endeavors such as respon characteristics from any found in nature and ane having dent's. The briefs present a gruesome parade of the potential for significant utility. His discovery is not horribles. Scientists, among them Nobel laureates, nature's handiwork, but his own; accordingly it is patent- are quoted suppesting that genetic research may able subject matter under $ 101. pose a serious threat to the human race, or, at the Two contrary arguments are advanced, neither of very least, that the dangers are far too substantial to which we find persuasive. The petitioner's first argument permit such research to proceed apace at this time. We rests on the enactment of the 1930 Plant Patent Act which are told that genetic research and related technological afforded patent protection to certain asexually reproduced developments may spread pollution and disease, that it plants, and the 1970 Plant Variety Protection Act, which may result in a loss of genetic diversity, and that authorized protection for certain sexually reproduced its practice may tend to depreciate the value of human plants but excluded bacteria from its protection. In the life ... . We disagree. The grant or denial of patents on petitioner's view, the passage of these Acts evidences microorganisms is not likely to put an end to genetic congressional understanding that the terms "manufac research or to its attendant risks. The large amount of ture" or "composition of matter" do not include living research that has already occurred when no researcher things; if they did, the petitioner argues, neither Act would had sure knowledge that patent protection would be have been necessary ... . We reject this argument. Prior to available suggests that legislative or judicial fiat as to 1950, two factors were thought to remove plants from patentability will not deter the scientific mind from patent protection. The first was the belief that plants, even probing into the unknown any more than Canute could those artificially bred, were products of nature for command the tides ... . purposes of the patent law. The second obstacle to patent protection for plants was the fact that plants ware thought Decision. Accordingly, the judgment of the Court of not amenable to the "written description" requirement of Customs and Patent Appeals was affirmed, allowing the patent law. Because now plants may differ from old the patenting of living organisms in the United States. only in color or perfume, differentiation by written description was often impossible. In enecting the Plant Patent Act. Congress addressed both of these concerns. It explained at length its belief that the work of the plant breeder "in aid of nature" wee patentable invention. And it relaxed the written descrip- tion requirement in favor of "a description ... as complete as is reasonably possible." No Committee or Member of Congress, however, expressed the broader view, now urged by the petitioner, that the terms "manufacture" or "composition of matter" exclude living things... Congress Il recognized that the relevant distinction wes not between living and inanimate things, but between
