AR-News: (US) AAVS Files First Ever Legal Challenge Against the Patenting of Animals

[AAVS]

AAVS Files First Ever Legal Challenge
Against the Patenting of Animals

Seeks to Rescind Controversial Patent on Beagle Dogs

The American Anti-Vivisection Society along with the International Center
for Technology Assessment, a non-profit group that works to address the
impacts of technology on human health, animal welfare, and the environment,
has formally filed a legal action requesting that the U.S. Patent and
Trademark Office (USPTO) rescind patent no. 6,444,872, which covers live
beagles and the several methods used to infect them with a fatal fungal
infection in their lungs. The Request for Re-Examination was submitted
personally to the Patent Office on February 25, 2004.

In 1999, experimenters at the University of Texas 'successfully' rendered 31
beagles to be immuno-compromised in order to 'mimic' humans who suffer from
maladies such as AIDS or are undergoing chemotherapy treatment and as a
result have weakened immune systems. These patients are susceptible to
fungal infections in their lungs. Although similar experiments have been
conducted on other animals, such as mice and rabbits, the researchers
claimed theirs was the first type of experiment performed on a "large
animal." 

The dogs received daily doses of steroids and were exposed to various levels
of total body irradiation (to essentially destroy their immune systems),
which entailed putting dogs in a box and exposing them to x-rays. After
several weeks, the beagles who survived were exposed to a mold by inserting
a tube down their throats, allowing for a localized infection in one lung
lobe. The 'inventors' consider the beagle patent a "testing vehicle" through
which they can learn more about respiratory fungal infections. It is also a
money maker for the experimenters, since they have licensed the use of the
patent to Sandra Technology, Inc., a start up for-profit company in Texas.

For over 200 years, the USPTO has issued patents‹exclusive property
rights‹to inventors of "any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or
composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof." Until
1980, when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that an oil-eating bacterium was
patentable subject matter, the Patent Office had prohibited the patenting of
living organisms such as plants or animals. However, the allowance of the
bacteria patent opened the door for a patent being issued to Harvard
University and its Oncomouse, mice who are genetically modified to be
predisposed to develop cancer. Since then, over 460 animal patents, which
involve animals ranging from mice to horses and macaques to dogs, have since
been issued.

However, animals are neither "machines" nor "compositions of matter" and,
thus, should not be considered patentable commodities. And by the
researchers' own admission, several of the dogs used for this patent
suffered from depression, a malady of sentient, self-aware beings.  We do
not treat companion animals like we treat toasters or computers for the
obvious reason that they are not inanimate objects. Animals are not articles
of manufacture; they are not human inventions, and their use should be
considered an inappropriate application of U.S. patent law.

The intent of this beagle patent‹to make dogs sick in order to generate a
profit‹is clear, and AAVS aims to end the notion that animals are 'objects'
that can be patented. Please contact the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office
and tell them that you support the Request for Re-Examination of patent no.
6,444,872. Tell the Patent Office that animals are not "machines" or
"compositions of matter." John Dudas, Acting Director, U.S. Patent and
Trademark Office, Mail Stop Comments - Patents, Commissioner for Patents,
P.O. Box 1450, Alexandria, VA 22313-1450. (Written letters sent via regular
mail are the best mode to contact government officials to assure that your
correspondence is fully considered and kept on file.)