Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
was deliberately trying hold the line for 'nature' - in this case (to use
my
Chapter 1
terms) the 'intrinsic' and 'super-ordinate' nature of human
DNA. While Myriad claimed that the judge's ruling deprived it of the com-
mercial rewards necessary to pay for further cancer research, the ACLU
argued that information about natural processes and phenomena would
(and should) now be more freely available for the use of all. Sweet's decision
was subsequently overturned on appeal.
If the Myriad case represents an attempt to reduce the scope of applica-
bility of 'invention' to biological phenomena, other critics of biotechnology
patents have, conversely, sought to
widen
that scope, but in a subversive way.
A great many patents conform comfortably to the legal criteria stipulated by
intellectual property law, at least according to the officials assessing patent
claims. Patents on various genetically modified foods are a now familiar
example. Critics have questioned the way that the capacity to 'invent' is
limited to corporations and their scientists in these patents. As Rosemary
Coombe and Andrew Herman (2004: 561) note, the concept of 'property' is
normative in that it means both that which someone owns
and
astandard
of behaviour that is deemed to be 'proper' (or right). By granting patents to
biotechnology companies, it is arguable that patent officials are redefining
property in both senses of the term by pretending that what's said to be nat-
ural is not itself
already the result of prior human inventiveness
. Let me explain,
with reference to 'invented seeds'.
For decades, government scientists and agro-foods companies have col-
lected seeds in order to conduct experiments in controlled breeding of
new crop strains for commercial use by farmers. These new strains have
frequently been bred so as to necessitate farmers purchasing specialised
herbicides and pesticides, and related equipment and advice, from com-
panies supplying the new seed stock. For example, in the mid to late 1990s,
Monsanto was granted US patents on seeds that produce what it called
Roundup Ready corn and Roundup Ready soybeans. More recently, it has
been granted patents on seeds for Roundup Ready sugar beet, cotton, canola
and alfalfa. These seeds all produce crops that are resistant to 'over the top'
applications of herbicide in which glyphosate is the dominant ingredient.
Glyphosate kills plants by inhibiting an enzyme their cells use to synthesize
amino acids (molecules used by the plants to make protein). By introduc-
ing a gene into the plant cells that is 'pre-programmed' into the seeds from
which they grown, scientists have been able to produce crops that can sur-
vive the herbicide unscathed. However, the weeds that grow in and around
Roundup Ready crops are not immune to glyphosate, which allows the her-
bicide to work selectively to the crops' (and thus farmers') advantage. In line
with the logic underpinning the US Supreme Court ruling on the
Diamond
versus Chakrabarty
case, Roundup Ready seeds are taken to be inventions.
This implies that their creators have taken 'products of nature' (as per
Ex
parte Latimer
) and then altered them inventively. But is this really so?
