Activists, Farmers File Suit to Halt Genetically Bred Animal Patents

Animal rights activists and farmers have asked a federal court to halt the patenting of genetically bred animals, claiming that the government has no authority to issue patents for higher orders of living creatures.

In a Washington news conference, officials of the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals and six other groups said their suit seeks to delay the patenting process until Congress has had time to consider the ethical and economic impacts of such patents.

John Kullberg, ASPCA president, said: “What the patent office has done--apparently without authorization--is to open a Pandora’s box that can unleash extraordinary consequences. The inhumane effect is to equate animals with other patentable human inventions such as the pocket-size fishing rod or the cordless microphone.”

On April 12, the Patent and Trademark Office granted Harvard University a patent on a genetically engineered mouse, the first such patent issued. The government is considering more than 20 other patent applications for genetically engineered animals.

The so-called “Harvard mouse” was created by splicing mouse tumor genes with the genes of mouse embryos. The rodents are expected to be useful in breast-cancer research.

In the lawsuit filed Thursday in U.S. District Court in San Francisco, opponents claim that the patent office exceeded its authority by issuing the patent before specific congressional authorization or opinions from the public had been received.

“This is not an attack on the merits of genetic engineering,” said Steven Wise, president of the Animal Legal Defense Fund, “it is simply an allegation that the patent office, by attempting to shoehorn all animals into the category of a ‘new and useful process, machine, manufacture or composition of matter,’ has exceeded the authorization Congress has given.”

A spokesman for the Patent and Trademark Office said the agency had not received a copy of the suit and would make no comment on the action. However, other officials noted that the government has granted patents on plant life since 1930 and on one-celled organisms since 1980.

Charles Van Horn, an attorney for the office, said the authority for the mouse patent came not from Congress but from a 1987 U.S. Supreme Court decision. In that decision the court said that a truly new form of oysters would be patentable under the present law.

Based on that ruling, the office issued a new policy in April, 1987, stating that it would henceforth consider patents for any genetically engineered creature. The only exception, the agency said, would be new forms of human beings.

Almost immediately after the decision, a controversy erupted among scientists and in Congress over its implications. Among other matters, farmers questioned whether they would be charged high prices for new forms of chickens and pigs that outproduced older varieties. And animal rights groups predicted that the well being of the creatures would be sacrificed to the pressure to produce.

To Propose Law

Rep. Robert W. Kastenmeier (D-Wis.) said recently that he would introduce legislation governing the use of such patents and protecting the rights of family farmers.

According to Kullberg, such legislation would not satisfy the groups behind the lawsuit. “We would like to see a much wider debate in the Congress,” he said.

While acknowledging that the Supreme Court intended to establish the patentability of creatures such as oysters in its 1987 decision, Kullberg argued that oysters are different from more complex animals. “We don’t believe the patent law ever intended to get into the arena of sentient animals, those who can experience suffering,” he said.

Issue Not Settled

The plaintiffs said they were led to believe that the patent office had an informal agreement with Congress not to issue approvals until lawmakers considered the matter. But the genetic engineering controversy was still being debated within congressional committees when the Harvard mouse patent was issued this spring, and several related bills are still being considered.