Duke link said:
also, these patented plants I believe are genetically modified isolated strains and its the seeds they are able patent, if you could in a lab genetically change an blue acro with white polyps into a pink acro with both red and green polyps, and make it grow from a seed maybe a patent would be something you could get. Very interesting topic, that's just my thoughts on it, anyone find anything online relating to this?
I just read this online.
You can only get patents for subject matter that's man-made and the product of a technical process; in other words, for something that's been invented.
In other words, you can only patent a living thing containing a newly found gene if the 'thing' has been deliberately altered by genetic engineering or biotechnology to introduce or modify that gene. An example of a patentable 'thing' is a genetically modified organism (GMO).
You cannot patent a living thing if the 'thing' is a human being. Subsection 18(2) of the Patents Act 1990 expressly excludes human beings, and processes for making human beings from patentability.
It's also important to remember that this type of subject matter must also meet the other standard requirements for a patent. For example, the 'thing' must be new and inventive and the patent specification must describe the process for making the 'thing' in such a way that someone reading the specification would know how to reproduce the 'thing'.
It is my understanding this isn't entirely correct, at least not in the states. The mindblowing thing in the States is that certain drug and pharmaceutical companies are already patenting parts of the human genome in hopes that they will hold the exclusive rights for treatment and drugs for therapies that treat genetic diseases. That's right, many genes in your body have been patented. Also, companies patent gene mutations in things such as transgenic mice in order to control research on finding a specific treatment for that disease. E.g., you can't research that condition using genetically mutated mice, because you don't have a patent to do so (or me, the patent holder, hasn't given you permission).
In terms of plants, almost all plants produced commerically are cloned (asexual reproduction verus sexual). I imagine most new varieties are created through hybridization, which is a form of sexual reproduction (think Gregor Mendell and his hybridized pea pods in highschool biology). Here is what the US Patent and Trademark Office states is a plant patent (
http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/pac/plant/), note the "discovered" part:
A plant patent is granted by the Government to an inventor (or the inventor's heirs or assigns) who has invented
or discovered and asexually reproduced a distinct and new variety of plant, other than a tuber propagated plant or a plant found in an uncultivated state. The grant, which lasts for 20 years from the date of filing the application, protects the inventor's right to exclude others from asexually reproducing, selling, or using the plant so reproduced. This protection is limited to a plant in its ordinary meaning:
A living plant organism which expresses a set of characteristics determined by its single, genetic makeup or genotype, which can be duplicated through asexual reproduction, but which can not otherwise be "made" or "manufactured." -
Jordan's note, corals would fit this description.
Sports, mutants, hybrids, and transformed plants are comprehended; sports or mutants may be spontaneous or induced. Hybrids may be natural, from a planned breeding program, or somatic in source. While natural plant mutants might have naturally occurred,
they must have been discovered in a cultivated area. -
Jordan's note, ie my frag tank.
Algae and macro fungi are regarded as plants, but bacteria are not. -
Jordan's note - what would zooanthelae be considered as - bacteria or algae - we know they have aspects of both!
The information presented in this publication is tailored to apply to and is limited to patents on asexually reproduced plants.
