A patent application on a method for making creatures that are part human and part animal was filed with the U.S. Patent Office in December 1997.   But Stuart A. Newman, a cellular biologist at New York Medical College in Valhalla who filed the application said he has no intention of ever creating such a creature.  Newman claims his application is designed to trigger debate about the morality of engineering human beings and patenting life forms.

For the past 18 years, courts have allowed patents on living creatures as long the application met the standard criteria for patentability and the Patent Office has granted over 80 patents on genetically engineered animals.  Although patents are not allowed on human beings, nothing in the U.S. patent code prohibits the patentability on a partially human creature and already some patents have been issued on animals with minor human components.

News of the announcement sparked national debate over the commercialization of life in a time when genetic engineering has blurred the distinctions between life forms. "It is a classic slippery slope," Thomas Murray, director of the Center for Biomedical Ethics at Case Western Reserve University, said in the Washington Post last month. "If we put one human gene in an animal, or two or three, some people may get nervous but you're clearly not making a person yet. But when you talk about a hefty percentage of the cells being human . . . this really is problematic. Then you have to ask these very hard questions about what it means to be human."

Both the process and any creatures created with it would be covered by Newman’s application, which is expected to be approved.  Scientists fear that the creation of new life forms, part human - part animal would be used for medical research, warfare, or enslaved.  Newman hopes his application and the subsequent examination of the issues will lead to the reversal of the 1980 U.S. Supreme Court ruling which held that living things could be patented and which provided the basis for all animal patents granted.

Congress and the courts must now brace themselves for a reexamination of the nation’s policy of ownership over biological organisms and what it means to be human.

1998 Robin D. Gross
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