patentingpeople.com covers the conference tomorrow at Cardoza law school of issues in the patenting of life. Here’s a short excerpt from their introduction to the subject of the conference. I’ll be talking about the patenting of stem cells, in case you need a nap.
When, if ever, should we grant patent rights government-guaranteed exclusivity to technology to inventions encompassing a human organism or more broadly aspects of humanity? If patents create an incentive for innovation, do we want to incentivize this kind of research? What happens when a chimeric animal patented and, therefore, owned by someone turns out to be too human? Or, if these kinds of technological advances are inevitable, is the disclosure system of patent law better than having cloning technology veiled in secrecy?