Abstract
Today, scientific work is less a basic expression of the “ancient aristocratic ethos of the love of knowledge” than a mere job to be done—by entrepreneurs, employees, or others who have independent funding.1 In 1980, Genentech—a San Francisco based biotechnology company—was the first such company to issue shares on the over-the-counter market. Among its products are a hormone capable of stimulating human growth, mass-produced human insulin which would allow a substantial reduction in cost of the treatment of diabetes, and interferon which may prove to be the long awaited “miracle” drug to combat cancer. In 1984, the Office of Technology Assessment estimated conservatively that some 225 firms are engaged in “commercializing biotechnology.”2
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Notes
Compton, Science, Anti Science and Human Values, 1 Amicus 33 (1980).
Inventors Dream of Genes, Time, Oct. 20, 1980, at 72. The potential profits derived from manipulating the genetic code—be it either to create new forms of life sufficient to clean up toxic chemical wastes or to produce anti-cancer agents on a grant scale—spurred President Derek Bok of Harvard University to suggest that his University start its own genetic engineering firm. Strong faculty opposition, however, forced him to give up these plans. A Firm No, Time, Dec. 1, 1980, at 59. Office of Technology Assessment, U.S. Cong., Commercial Biotechnology: An International Analysis 542-546, (OTA-BA-218, Jan. 1984).
See Cinelli, Biotechnological Research and Development: The Joint Venture as a Viable Corporate Entity in a High Risk Industry, 13 J. Corp. L. 549 (1988).
Diamond v. Chakrabarty, 447 U.S. 303 (1980).
Annas, Life Forms: The Law and The Profits, Hastings Center Rep. 21, 22 (Oct. 1978).
Supra note 1, at 37.
Id.
See Hilts, ‘Rules’ Drawn for Marketing Gene Research, Wash. Post, Mar. 28, 1982 at Al, col. 3; Will, The Spiral of Patents Pending, Wash. Post, June 22, 1980, at B7, col. 6.
Stone, Knowledge, Survival and The Duties of Science, 23 Am. U. L. Rev. 231 (1973).
See generally G. Smith, Genetics, Ethics and the Law 1, (1981).
J. Fletcher, The Ethics of Genetic Control 5 (1974).
Rivers, Genetic Engineering Portends a Grave New World, Sat. Rev. April 8, 1972, at 23. See Smith, Intimations of Immortality: Clones, Cryons and The Law, 6 U. New So. Wales L. Rev. 119 (1983); Smith, Beyond the Land of Oz: Clones, Cyborgs and Chimeras, 2 Reps. 6th World Cong. Med. L. 15 (1982).
See generally A. Toynbee, Surviving the Future (1971); The Prospects of Western Civilization (1949).
DNA is the basic genetic material that transmits inherited characteristics.
Clark, Begley & Hager, The Miracle of Spliced Genes, Newsweek, Mar. 17, 1980, at 62.
See generally Baker & Clough, The Technological Use and Methodology of Recombinant DNA, 51 S. Cal. L. Rev. 1009 (1978).
Berger, Government Regulation of the Pursuit of Knowledge: The Recombinant DNA Controversy, 3 Sup. CT. L. Rev. 83 (1978).
Scientists Want Limit Dropped on Gene Splitting Experiments, Wash. Post, Nov. 26, 1980, at C3, col. 5 But see Fields, Bizarre Circumstances Surround Chance Cloning of Banner Virus, Chronicle of Higher Education, Aug. 25, 1980, at 1, col. 1 (in violation of federal guidelines that bar genetic copying, a researcher at the University of California at San Diego cloned a virus); Holtzman, Patenting Certain Forms of Life: A Moral Justification, Hastings Center Rep. 9 (June 1979).
See generally Deatherage, Scientific Uncertainty in Regulating Deliberate Release of Genetically Engineered Organisms: Substantive Judicial Review and Institutional Alternatives 11 Harv. Envt’l L. Rev. 203 (1987).
Neville, Philosophic Perspective on Freedom of Inquiry, 51 S. Cal. L. Rev. 1115, 1121 (1978).
Cohen, Restrictions of Research with Recombinant DNA: The Dangers of Inquiry and the Burden of Proof, 51 S. Cal. L. Rev. 1081, 1082, 1099 (1978).
See Comment, Designer Genes That Don’t Fit: A Tort Regime for Commercial Releases of Genetic Engineering Products, 100 Haw. L. Rev. 1086 (1987).
Fletcher, Ethics and Recombinant DNA Research, 51 S. Cal. L. Rev. 1131, 1139 (1978). Fletcher observes that there is nothing fundamentally unnatural or intrinsically wrong, or hazardous for the species, in the ambition that drives man to develop the technology to understand himself. It would in fact seem more offensive to fail to use and develop man’s natural curiosity and talen for asking questions or worse to try to suppress it.
See Toulmin, Science and Ethics: Can They be Reconnected: 73 U. Chi. Mag. 2 (1981).
See Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973).
See J. Roslansky, Genetics and the Future of Man 46 (1966).
See G. Smith, supra note 9, at 2.
See generally R. Howard & J. Rifkin, Who Should Play God? (1977); Hilts, Genetic Scientist is Punished for Test Violations, Wash. Post, Mar. 23, 1981, at A1, col. 1.
Sinsheimer, Recombinant DNA—On Our Own, 26 Bio-Science 599 (1976).
Sinsheimer, Potential Risks, in Research with Recombinant DNA (Nat’l Academy of Science ed. 1977).
V. Goodfield, Playing God 71 (1977).
Fletcher, supra note 18, at 1138-1139.
Id. at 1138.
See generally T. Beauchamp & L. Walters, Contemporary Issues in Bioethics (1978).
Smith, Uncertainties on the Spiral Staircase: Metaethics and The New Biology, 41 Pharos Med. J. 10 (1978).
See Irons & Sears, Patent ‘Re-examination’: A Case for Administrative Arrogation, 1980 Utah L. Rev. 287-288. By the Patent Clause, Congress is authorized “[t]o promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times... Inventors the exclusive Right to their... Discoveries.” U.S. Const. Art. I, § 8, col. 8.
See Sakraida v. AgPro, Inc., 425 U.S. 273, 279 (1976); Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1, 5–6 (1966); Atlantic Works v. Brady, 107 U.S. 192, 200 (1882) Interestingly, about 65–70% of litigated patents are invalidated. T. Beauchamp & I. Walters, supra note 29, at 305.
Diamond v. Chakrabarty, 447 U.S. 303 (1980).
Justice Brennan, writing in dissent, surveyed the Patent Act of 1793, as re-enacted in 1952, the Plant Patent Act of 1930, and the Plant Variety Protection Act of 1970 and concluded that there existed a strong congressional limitation against patenting bacteria. Id. at 322.
35 U.S.C. § 101 (1976).
Diamond v. Chakrabarty, 447 U.S., at 307.
Gore, The Awesome Worlds Within a Cell, 150 Nat’l Geographic 355, 374-375 (1976).
Irons & Sears, Patents in Relation to Microbiology, 29 Ann. Rev. Microbiology 319, 331 (1975).
See generally Kiley, Common Sense and the Uncommon Bacterium—Is ‘Life’ Patentable, 60 J. Pat. Off. Soc’y 468 (1978).
Wegner, The Patentability of ‘New’ Manufacturers—The Living Invention, in Paient Law ConferenceCoursebook (Bureau of National Affairs ed. 1978). In a suit maintained by an individual who was successfully treated for leukemia by the University of California’s Medical Center for the “commercial exploitation” of products medical researchers had obtained from his body tissue, the Court of Appeal of California held that human tissues and cells remain a person’s property when taken for medical purposes and that the individual patient is entitled to share in the profits if they are used commercially. Moore v. The Regents of California, 249 Cal. Rptr. 494 (1988).
Application of Chakrabarty, 517 F. 2d 40 (C.C.P.A.) dismissed 439 U.S. 801 (1978), rev’d sub nom. Application of Bergy, 596 F.2d 952 (C.C.P.A.), cert. granted, 444 U.S. 924 (1979).
Student Papers, Microbiological Plant Patents, 10 Idea 87 (1966).
Id. See Cooper, Patent Protection for New Forms of Life, 38 Fed. Bar. J. 34 (1979).
Kip, The Patentability of Natural Phenomena, 20 Geo. Wash. L. Rev. 371 (1952).
DeMott & Thomas, Test-Tube Life: Reg. U.S. Pat. Off., Time, June 30, 1980, at 52.
See Nelkin, Threats and Promises: Negotiating the Control of Research, 107 Daedalus 191 (1978).
447 U.S. at 308 (1980).
Id.
Id. at 310. See generally Delgado & Miller, God, Galileo and Government: Toward Constitutional Protection for Scientific Inquiry, in 1 Ethical, Legal and Social Challenges to a Brave New World 231 (G. Smith ed. 1982).
447 U.S. at 315.
Id. at 316-317. See Gladwell, Report Boosts Biotechnology Experiments: Risks of Small-Scale Tests Outdoors Called Minimal, Wash. Post, May 5, 1988, at El, col. 2.
Id.
Id. at 317.
Id. at 311.
Sinsheimer, The Dawn of Genetic Engineering, 190 Science 768 (1975).
See Fletcher, Moral Problems and Ethical Issues in Prospective Human Gene Therapy, 69 Va. L. Rev. 515 (1983).
See Smith, Manipulating the Genetic Code: Jurisprudential Conundrums, 64 Geo. L. J. 697 (1976).
See also Office of Technology Assessment, Impact of Applied Genetics (1981); Note, Building a Better Bacterium: Genectic Engineering and the Patent Law After Diamond v. Chakrabarty, 81 Colum. L. Rev. 159 (1981).
Lederberg, Orthobiosis: The Perfection of Man in Place of Value in a World of Facts 29 (A. Tiselius & S. Nilsson eds. 1980).
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Smith, G.P. (1989). Law, Science, and the New Biology. In: The New Biology. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4899-0803-2_2
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