Diamond v. Chakrabarty

Diamond v. Chakrabarty, 447 U.S. 303 (1980), was a United States Supreme Court case dealing with whether genetically modified micro-organisms can be patented.

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Background

Genetic engineer Ananda Mohan Chakrabarty, working for General Electric, had developed a bacterium (derived from the Pseudomonas genus) capable of breaking down crude oil, which he proposed to use in treating oil spills. He requested a patent for the bacterium in the United States but was turned down by a patent examiner, because the law dictated that living things were not patentable.

The Patent Office Board of Appeals agreed with the original decision; however, the United States Court of Customs and Patent Appeals overturned the case in Chakrabarty's favor, writing that "the fact that micro-organisms are alive is without legal significance for purposes of the patent law." Sidney A. Diamond, Commissioner of Patents and Trademarks, appealed to the Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court case was argued on March 17, 1980 and decided on June 16, 1980.

Decision

In a 5-4 ruling, the court ruled in favor of Chakrabarty, and upheld the patent, holding that:

A live, human-made micro-organism is patentable subject matter under [Title 35 U.S.C.] 101. Respondent's micro-organism constitutes a "manufacture" or "composition of matter" within that statute.

Ruling

Chief Justice Warren E. Burger wrote the decision, and was joined by Potter Stewart, Harry Blackmun, William Rehnquist, and John Paul Stevens.

Burger wrote that the question before the court was a narrow one - the interpretation of 35 U.S.C. 101, which says:

"Whoever invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent therefor, subject to the conditions and requirements of this title."

He wrote that:

We have [in earlier ruling 289 U.S. 178] cautioned that courts "should not read into the patent laws limitations and conditions which the legislature has not expressed."

Regarding the scope of the original legislation, he wrote:

In choosing such expansive terms as "manufacture" and "composition of matter," modified by the comprehensive "any," Congress plainly contemplated that the patent laws would be given wide scope.

Finding that Congress had intended patentable subject matter to "include anything under the sun that is made by man," he concluded that:

Judged in this light, respondent's micro-organism plainly qualifies as patentable subject matter. His claim is ... to a nonnaturally occurring manufacture or composition of matter - a product of human ingenuity.

Dissent

The dissenting opinion was written by William J. Brennan, who was joined by Byron White, Thurgood Marshall, and Lewis Franklin Powell.

Brennan's dissent focused on the argument that there is evidence in the legislative record that Congress did not intend living organisms to be patented.

We must be careful to extend patent protection no further than Congress has provided.

Brennan noted that "we do not confront a complete legislative vacuum", and commented on the 1930 Plant Patent Act and 1970 Plant Variety Protection Act, which explicitly allow patents for plants in certain cases:

The Acts evidence Congress' understanding, at least since 1930, that 101 does not include living organisms. If newly developed living organisms not naturally occurring had been patentable under 101, the plants included in the scope of the 1930 and 1970 Acts could have been patented without new legislation.

Therefore:

Because Congress thought it had to legislate in order to make agricultural "human-made inventions" patentable and because the legislation Congress enacted is limited, it follows that Congress never meant to make items outside the scope of the legislation patentable.

And with regard to the specifics of the 1970 act:

Congress specifically excluded bacteria from the coverage of the 1970 Act ... The fact is that Congress, assuming that animate objects as to which it had not specifically legislated could not be patented, excluded bacteria from the set of patentable organisms.