8/7/2019 emm daez's argumenents against chakrabarty rule

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ARGUMENTS AGAINST THE CHAKRABARTY RULE

The United States (US) Supreme Courts ruling in Diamond vs. Chakrabarty1 wasLEGALLY, ENVIRONMENTALLY, and ETHICALLY WRONG!

Firstly, it is legally infirmed. As correctly argued by Justice William J. Brennan in hisdissenting opinion, the US Congress did not intend living organisms to be patented because the1930 Plant Patent Act and 1970 Plant Variety Protection Act explicitly allow patents for plants incertain cases. If newly developed living organisms not naturally occurring had been patentableunder Title 35 U.S.C. 101, the plants included in the scope of the 1930 and 1970 Acts could hadbeen patented without new legislation. Since the US Congress thought it had to legislate inorder to make agricultural "human-made inventions" patentable, it follows that it never meant tomake items outside the scope of the legislation patentable.

Secondly, numerous genetically modified organisms had been patented since more thanthree (3) decades after the US Supreme Court ruled that a live, human-made micro-organism ispatentable 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 healthdisasters2. Environmentalists, not only in the Philippines, are clamoring for the banning ofgenetically modified organisms (GMOs) because they profusely produce antibiotics. I learnedfrom my Environmental Law class professor3 that germs and viruses exposed to too muchantibiotics become immune and more resilient; thereby making them more dangerous not onlyto 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 theagricultural fields in Negros, but ended up eating the entire crops also; and (2) the janitor fishfingerlings seeded into the Pasig River to clean its water, but ended up gobbling up the localmarine life in the river. These experiences only show that the ability of animals, more so of

organisms, to adapt into their new environment ormutate 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, thepotential patentability of human stem cells and human cloning techniques pose serious ethicalconcerns and moral issues because they will surely violate the principle against theownership of human beings. The ethical appropriateness of human gene patents runs counterto mankinds dignity and human lifes sanctity as it will result to the commoditization of humantissue, and eventually to mans confidence in playing the role of God.

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

1In 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 Chakrabartys bacterium capable of breaking down crudeoil, which he proposed to use in treating oil spills.

2Human 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, hadcontaminated food products like the tacos at Taco Bell, and a huge percentage of US's seed supply. The company had to paymillions to consumers to settle class action lawsuits for alleged health problems.

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