Germany OK's Human Gene Patents

Masem writes "According to the Oct 26, 2000 issue of Nature, Germany has allowed the patenting of human genes, or parts thereof. There is currently an initiative thoughout the EU to push similar regulation through all other member countries, but many have been slow to adopt it (shades of UCITA). Many are protesting these decisions, which they argue continues to undercut privacy and the value of a human being for commercial purposes. The Netherlands are suing the EU for even having this initiative. Particularly at issue is that subsets of the gene structures can be patented, which could lead to a number of trivial but valid patents. Germany officials say they will try to limit such subset patents to those that perform the useful function they are supposed to."

Comments

Everybody wears designer genes...

[human bean]

1. Does the fact that somebody may have the newly patented gene sequence in their body constitute prior art?

2. Since most human gene sequences are destined to make chemicals by way of insertion splicing, etc. does this mean that we as humans are violating German patent law by using these same genes ourselves?

3. Given the verbose qualities of the German language, how are they going to get the word for "patent" and the number onto the gene?