Mc Trees*tm* and the Coca Cola constellation.

I was watching a documentary about the interesting goings on within major corporations lately and I was stunned to find out that General Electric actually patented a unique DNA strand which had been created through exposure to some materials tht GE was working with.

Since the precedent set by this incident corporations everywhere have been buying up the rights to DNA types like they are going out of fashion with the only restriction of not being able to patent a FULL BORN HUMAN.
I am not well versed with the ins and outs of Patents and the implications of life forms becomin the intellectual property of corporations.

So I am opening this threads in the hope of Hearing your opinions on the subject. I will also hunt for a link to the General Electric story.

The link
www.dnapatent.com...

An interesting related link;-
www.smh.com.au...

[edit on 21/2/2005 by JamesBlonde]

[edit on 21/2/2005 by JamesBlonde]

I have also noticed that a lot of people are reticent to discuss the implications of this. Any ideas Why?

Well if I keep persisting perhaps somebody will want to talk about this.

Hello?

Anybody out there???

Have some patience. You'll eventually get somebody to comment on it...

Well JB, your last link given requires a subscription to view, but your first link had some good patent info on the subject.

Patentable biotechnology inventions include:

* A process of genetically altering or otherwise inducing a single or multi-celled organism to:
o Express an exogenous nucleotide sequence
o Inhibit, eliminate, augment, or alter expression of an endogenous nucleotide sequence
o express a specific physiological characteristic not normally associated with that organism
* Cell fusion procedures yielding a cell line that expresses a specific protein (eg. monoclonal antibody)
* A method of using a product produced by the above manipulations

I havent seen the article on the GE DNA patent, but I have a feeling they patented the process from which the DNA was constructed. Not the type of DNA itself. It would be helpfull if you could post a link to the GE article. I cant find it.

I know, neither could I...

Actually it was some type of petroleum substance which altered some micro-organisms thereby creating a new life form and the DNA model was patented after being appealed. Eventually the US High Court (I think) ruled that DNA could be patented and become the intellectual property of its owner with the exception of a full born human being. It is the wording of this exception which I find highly ambiguous. It suggests thatsome human matter can be patented and I found this very disturbing.

Waking up one morning to find that some pharmecutical company now owned my left leg and wanted to do tests on it or something.