Earlier this year, animal rights activists applauded the decision of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to reconsider a patent that the University of Texas at Austin obtained on a beagle disease model. In late May, the University of Texas at Austin formally gave up all of its rights to the beagle patent.
The University of Texas at Austin was awarded Patent # 6,444,872 for a fungal lung disease model applying to beagles and a number of other animals. The American Anti-Vivisection Society and a number of intellectual property groups asked the USPTO to overturn the patent on the grounds that the method of infecting the animals with the fungal lung disease were not novel or original.
On May 21, the USPTO agreed to reexamine the patent, and shortly thereafter UTA announced it would voluntarily give up its patent rather than defend the patent.
The motivations of the group concerned with patents makes sense, but the animal rights motivation seems a bit odd. AAVS president Sue Leary was quoted in a press release as saying,
It is fundamentally illegitimate and flawed to consider any animal to be patentable subject matter, and defined as a machine, an article of manufacture, or an inventor’s composition of matter. The horrible treatment of these patented dogs is a disgraceful illustration of the convergence of bad science and bad policy.
But, of course, the patent office wasn’t going to consider whether or not animals are patentable — that they are is already well established in the United States and the USPTO has issued more than 450 patents involving animals. All that was at issue here was whether or not the particular method used to infect the beagles with the fungal infection was novel or original.
Leary’s concern about the horrible treatment is even odder. If the method were patented, UTA and the private company it had licensed the patent to would have charged for the method and split the profits (at least for the term of the patent). With the patent rights disclaimed, anyone can use this method royalty free immediately.
So, in effect, Leary and her group fought to make it easier and cheaper for researchers to use this particular method.
Way to go, Sue!
Source:
Beagles win first round in fight for reprieve from patenting. Press Release, American Anti-Vivisection Society, May 21, 2004.
Groups object to UT’s beagle project. Associated Press, February 26, 2004.
Patent on beagle dogs cancelled. Press Release, American Anti-Vivisection Society, May 27, 2004.