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European Court of Justice Rejects Stem-Cell Patents

Posted by timothy on from the but-it's-just-a-mass-of-tissue dept.

ianare writes "The European Court of Justice Friday issued a preliminary opinion that procedures involving human embryonic stem cells are not patentable — even if the process in question does not involve the direct destruction of embryos — because they are tantamount to making industrial use of human embryos, which 'would be contrary to ethics and public policy.'"

1 of 92 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Patents should not be about ethics by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Personally I don't think ethics should play a role in what is patentable.

    Then you don't understand the nature of ethics. Ethics play a role in everything we do, even by their absence.
    I'm sure that some would argue that the ethical requirement on a court is to apply simple objective tests that would reach a different conclusion to this, but that's very different from saying that ethics don't apply.