BIO Celebrates Anniversary of Chakrabarty Decision

    By Donald Zuhn --

In a press release issued on Wednesday, the Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO) recalled the Supreme Court's landmark decision in Diamond v. Chakrabarty, which was issued thirty years ago on June 16, 1980.  In Chakrabarty, the Court determined (by a 5-4 vote) that a genetically engineered Pseudomonas bacterium capable of breaking down multiple components of crude oil "plainly qualifies" as patentable subject matter under 35 U.S.C. § 101 (at right, Dr. Ananda Chakrabarty).  Citing the Senate and House Committee Reports that accompanied the 1952 Patent Act, the Court explained that "Congress intended statutory subject matter to 'include anything under the sun that is made by man," and determined that "[Chakrabarty's] discovery is not nature's handiwork, but his own," and therefore constituted patentable subject matter under § 101.

In BIO's release, BIO President and CEO Jim Greenwood that the Chakrabarty decision "was instrumental in spurring the creation of a dynamic and flourishing biotech industry," adding that the decision "provided assurance to biotech companies and their investors that emerging technologies are protected by the patent system even if they could not have been foreseen when the system was created 200 years earlier."  Mr. Greenwood noted that in the thirty years that have passed since the Court decided Chakrabarty, "the biotechnology industry in the United States has improved and saved lives around the world through breakthrough medical therapies, increased crop yields, and renewable fuels," and has been "a key component of the nation’s innovation economy, supporting more than 7.5 million jobs throughout the country and providing the United States with a global competitive advantage."

Coincidentally, while the biotech industry celebrated the 30th anniversary of the Chakrabarty decision, Myriad Genetics and the Directors of the University of Utah Research Foundation spent part of the day filing their notice of appeal in the Association for Molecular Pathology v. U.S. Patent and Trademark Office gene patenting case (see "Myriad Appeals AMP v. USPTO Decision").

Comments

[6]

If you're reading Chadrabarty, congratulations for starting the mess that confused a generation of patent lawlyers.

Oh and btw, your "invention" was no good anyway. Great job. No really. I wonder how much money you blew on this case?

Maybe if you had saved those $$$ you could have inventedlol something that wasn't horrible we wouldn't be so worried about this current little slip up by BP.

/golfclap.

[K.M.Senthil Kumar]

Patenting in Biotechnology can be categorised in two ways. One way faciliate that the manipulated genes can be patented and forms statutory patentable subject matter in Diamond vs Chakraborthy case. On the other hand, "Myriad AMP v. USPTO Decision" , the court held that "isolated DNA" is nothing but physical embodiment of genetic information and forms the non-statutory subject matter for patenting. Now, the appellate court has to strike a clear cut balance between these two extreme cases so as to establish balancing patent jurisprudence for Biotechnology cases.

[K.M.Senthil Kumar]

Biotech patent jurisprudence can be categorised into two cases. One in which the patenting life forms through gene manipulation was held to be statutory patentable subject matter through which biotech industries benefitted immensely. Other case in which the court held that patenting isolated DNA was non statutory subject matter since it was nothing but physical embodiment of genetic information. Since, the decision in these cases involve contradictory patentable jurisprudence, the apex court on appeal should strike a clear cut balance between these two cases so that the court verdict establishes the right kind of patentable jurisprudence in Biotech cases.

[EG]

Don,

Let's definitely raise a toast to Chakrabarty and hope that "anything under the sun that is made by man" remains the standard for patent-eligible under 35 USC 101, even after SCOTUS opines (God truly only knows when) in Bilski.