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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.'"

13 of 92 comments (clear)

  1. Life is not patentable... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    ...there is prior art, at least by 4 billion years.

    1. Re:Life is not patentable... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

      Spelling has been around for a while, too.

    2. Re:Life is not patentable... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      How exactly is the industrial use of human embryos unethical anyway?

      1) at what point does it legally become "human"? You have to draw a line somewhere for legal purposes. It'll be arbitrary and silly, but it's still necessary.

      2) They are treating humans and human embryos as a special case. This is a good thing (for humans anyway). You don't want the usual sociopathic CEOs to consider the use/abuse of human embryos lightly, all in the purpose of profit.

      If you think that allowing industrial use of human embroys is necessary to provide those treatments you probably believe Monsanto and friends GM plans will cure world hunger or something.

    3. Re:Life is not patentable... by Muros · · Score: 2

      There is a difference between information and noise. Granted, it depends which brains you look at....

  2. Patents should not be about ethics by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Personally I don't think ethics should play a role in what is patentable. Patentability should depends solely on the technical merits of the application. We do already have various laws, treaties and oaths concerning the ethics of medical research.

    The idea that rejecting a patent somehow sends the signal that something is unacceptable is also a bit strange. Making procedures unpatentable would just make them more widely available wouldn't it?

    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.

    2. Re:Patents should not be about ethics by gilesjuk · · Score: 4, Interesting

      These are techniques using the building blocks of life, not some drug they have developed. If the patented technique is close to how a human life develops then effectively that company would have a patent on human development. That is why it would be unethical and wrong.

    3. Re:Patents should not be about ethics by Stormthirst · · Score: 2

      Mod up! Seriously, if we didn't have ethics in everything we do, we'd be in the middle of the worst recession ever. Oh, wait ...

    4. Re:Patents should not be about ethics by mwvdlee · · Score: 2

      or the cure for being Gay...

      Off-topic...
      This is often stated, based on it being utterly ridiculous to concieve sexual orientation is some sort of medical condition that can be altered at will.
      I wonder what the ethics would be in the hypothetical situation where there is some sort of pill that could switch humans to being attracted to males/females/both/none/poodles/etc.

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    5. Re:Patents should not be about ethics by St.Creed · · Score: 3, Funny

      or the cure for being Gay...

      Off-topic...
      This is often stated, based on it being utterly ridiculous to concieve sexual orientation is some sort of medical condition that can be altered at will.
      I wonder what the ethics would be in the hypothetical situation where there is some sort of pill that could switch humans to being attracted to males/females/both/none/poodles/etc.

      I'll take the poodle-pill. It sounds much cheaper and easier than being attracted to women.

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  3. right answer wrong reason by chichilalescu · · Score: 5, Interesting

    as far as I understand it, the point of patents is to allow inventors to profit from their invention even though it's not an industrial secret. the community can benefit from understanding why the invention works, and the inventor gets back their investment, plus profit.
    there are a lot of problems with this system at the moment, because too many things are getting patented.
    there are a lot of cases where several researchers concentrate on some given problem, they publish intermediary results, and it is predictable that within some time frame most specialists will arrive at the same solution. however, only the first one to find the final result (or the first one to file for the patent) is awarded the patent. this is wrong in my view, because there is an entire community working in that direction.
    in medicine, I'm pretty confident this is the general case, and pretty much the reason there are several different but similar drugs dealing with the same medical problems.

    basically, I think patents should only be granted to individual researchers who can prove they developped a concept (on their own) based on widely available information. anything other than that is just simple research, and should be rewarded with grants or prizes by private persons/organisations, but not with a patent. "ethics" and religion should have nothing to do with patentability.

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    1. Re:right answer wrong reason by kanweg · · Score: 2

      The intermediary results count as prior art just like anything else. And to get a patent the invention has to be Novel and involve an Inventive Step over that. Sure, the final result may be something obviously desirable, but if you can't solve the problem of how to get there just by studying that intermediary literature and know what to do, then the Inventive Step is there, and a patent is warranted.

      There is a system to get rid of patents that shouldn't have been granted (called the Opposition procedure in Europe).

      The advantage of a patent over prizes is that there is no need to have a committee putting a price on it. The market decides. And the problem as to what warrants a prize and what does not is about the same, I guess.

      Bert

  4. The ruling text by ciaran_o_riordan · · Score: 3, Informative

    The preliminary ruling has been published in French and German:

    * http://www.europeandignitywatch.org/fileadmin/user_upload/PDF/ECJ/Conclusions_de_l_Avocat_General_Yves_Bot.pdf
    * http://www.europeandignitywatch.org/fileadmin/user_upload/PDF/ECJ/Schlussantraege_des_Generalanwalts_Yves_Bot.pdf

    And there's the ECJ's press release in English:
    * http://www.europeandignitywatch.org/fileadmin/user_upload/PDF/ECJ/ECJ_Press_Release.pdf

    I'm reading with interest to see if this ruling can also provide a "public interest" base for excluding software from patentability if the question ever gets to the ECJ.

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