6. Animal Patenting

In 1987 a Harvard biologist was granted the first patent for an animal. The ‘oncomouse’ was genetically engineered to predispose it, and all its offspring, to develop cancer, so they can be used for research.(1) The patent on the oncomouse, which is licensed to DuPont (the corporation that financed the research), extends to any other animal genetically engineered to contain genes that cause cancer. (2)

By 1997, over forty animals had been patented, including turkeys, nematodes, mice and rabbits. Hundreds of other patents are currently awaiting approval, including patents on pigs, cows, fish, sheep and monkeys. (3)

• Tracey the sheep has had human genes introduced into her mammary glands so that she produces a human blood-clotting agent called alpha-1-antitrypsin in her milk. The patent is held by Pharmaceutical Proteins Ltd. (PPL). Their spokesperson described sheep like Tracey as "furry little factories walking around in fields." Tracey's success was said to provide "a strong impetus to the further exploitation of transgenic sheep as bioreactors for the production of large amounts of pharmacologically active proteins" (4)

• PPL have also applied for a broad patent covering all cloned mammals. Dolly the sheep was the first mammal to be successfully cloned, in February 1997: a nucleus taken from a cell from the udder of an adult sheep was implanted into an egg which had had its own nucleus removed. This egg was then transferred into another sheep, where it developed into Dolly, who is genetically identical to the sheep from which the udder cells were taken. The Scottish research team who cloned her applied for a broad patent which would give them exclusive patent rights over all cloned animals. (5)

References:

1. European Patent Office, Method for producing transgenic animals. Harvard College, European Patent No. 0169 672.
Raines L. (March 1989) Of Mice and Men and Tennis Balls. Across the Board, p.46
2. Kimbrell A. (1997) The Human Body Shop. Regnery Publishing, Washington DC, p.236.
US Congress (April 1989) New Developments in Biotechnology: Patenting life—Special Report. US Congress, Office of Technology Assessment, OTA-BA-370, US Government Printing Office, p.37
3. Kimbrell A. (1997) The Human Body Shop. Regnery Publishing, Washington DC, p.237-238
Testimony of Michael Glough, US Congress, Office of Technology Assessment, Before the Subcommittee on Intellectual Property and Judicial Administration House Committee on the Judiciary, 20 November 1991, on ‘Patents and Biotechnology’
4. GRAIN (1998) Patenting, Piracy and Perverted Promises. Briefing published by Genetic Resources Action International, Barcelona, Spain
5. Coghlan A. (1 March 1997) One small step for a sheep. New Scientist
Rifkin J. (1998) The Biotech Century. Tarcher and Putnam, p.47

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