ARGUMENTS AGAINST THE CHAKRABARTY RULE

The United States (US) Supreme Court’s ruling in Diamond vs. Chakrabarty 1 was
LEGALLY, ENVIRONMENTALLY, and ETHICALLY WRONG!

Firstly, it is legally infirmed. As correctly argued by Justice William J. Brennan in his

dissenting opinion, the US Congress did not intend living organisms to be patented because the
1930 Plant Patent Act and 1970 Plant Variety Protection Act explicitly allow patents for plants in
certain cases. If newly developed living organisms not naturally occurring had been patentable
under Title 35 U.S.C. 101, the plants included in the scope of the 1930 and 1970 Acts could had
been patented without new legislation. Since the US Congress thought it had to legislate in
order to make agricultural "human-made inventions" patentable, it follows that it never meant to
make items outside the scope of the legislation patentable.

Secondly, numerous genetically modified organisms had been patented since more than
three (3) decades after the US Supreme Court ruled that a live, human-made micro-organism is
patentable subject matter under 101 because it constitutes a "manufacture" or "composition of
matter" within that statute. Sadly, some of them led to alarming environmental and health
disasters2. Environmentalists, not only in the Philippines, are clamoring for the banning of
genetically modified organisms (GMOs) because they profusely produce antibiotics. I learned
from my Environmental Law class professor3 that germs and viruses exposed to too much
antibiotics become immune and more resilient; thereby making them more dangerous not only
to human beings but to the animals and plants, as well.

Crude parallel examples would be the following: (1) introduction of the Golden snails
(which the country imported from Thailand) intended to get rid of the worms that pester the
agricultural fields in Negros, but ended up eating the entire crops also; and (2) the janitor fish
fingerlings seeded into the Pasig River to clean its water, but ended up gobbling up the local
marine life in the river. These experiences only show that the ability of animals, more so of
organisms, to adapt into their new environment or mutate into something else is indeed volatile
– as the nature itself and the living things in it are unpredictable.

Lastly, as a result of the Chakrabarty ruling, the

potential patentability of human stem cells and human cloning techniques pose serious ethical
concerns and moral issues because they will surely violate the principle against the
ownership of human beings. The ethical appropriateness of human gene patents runs counter
to mankind’s dignity and human life’s sanctity as it will result to the commoditization of human
tissue, and eventually to man’s confidence in playing the role of God.

God gave man stewardship of all living things; not the creation of such living things.

1
In Sidney A. Diamond, Commissioner of Patents and Trademarks vs. genetic engineer Ananda Mohan Chakrabarty - 447
U.S. 303 (1980), the US Supreme Court ruled in favor of the patent of Chakrabarty’s bacterium capable of breaking down crude
oil, which he proposed to use in treating oil spills.
2
Human health problems occurred in the US due to genetically engineered crops. One of the largest food recalls in US
history was the Starlink scandal, where a Bt corn plant not approved for human consumption due its risk as an allergen, had
contaminated food products like the tacos at Taco Bell, and a huge percentage of US's seed supply. The company had to pay
millions to consumers to settle class action lawsuits for alleged health problems.
3