The Rights to Life Itself

An editorial in Wednesday's Milwaukee Journal Sentinel argues the case for the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation's stem cell patents.

Wisconsin discovered last week that being at the point of cutting-edge biological science such as embryonic stem cell research can be a two-edged sword. Two out-of-state foundations challenged the stem cell patents held by the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation.

They argued that the patents not only were unfair but were impeding scientific research. Because of the millions of dollars in royalties at stake for the Wisconsin foundation, which is the University of Wisconsin patenting and licensing arm, the challenge has important economic implications for both sides in the dispute.

At the risk of sounding parochial, we don't think the arguments offered by the out-of-state foundations are compelling enough reason for the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to overturn the three patents awarded to UW embryonic stem cell pioneer James Thomson. Further, there may even be some basis to the allegation made by Carl Gulbrandsen, managing director of the Wisconsin foundation, that the patent challenge was politically and financially motivated.

...As Journal Sentinel business writer Kathleen Gallagher noted in an article Sunday, the Wisconsin foundation provided licenses and cells to 12 commercial users who pay fees ranging from $75,000 to more than $250,000, plus annual royalties.

This matter involves the buying, selling, licensing, and owning the rights to human life.

Rather than something sacred, life is a commodity.

According to an academic paper published in November and cited by Gallagher, those fees are comparable to the inflation-adjusted fees that California's Stanford University required on its recombinant DNA patents granted in 1980. So what's the difference?

"It is absolutely absurd that one person or organization could own the rights to life itself," said John Simpson of the California foundation involved in the challenge, the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights.

Dramatic words, but, as Gallagher noted, the U.S. Supreme Court in a 1980 decision made patenting life forms possible. Which in effect pulls the rug out from under Simpson and his foundation.

"Own the rights to life itself" --

"Patenting life forms" --

Are Simpson, Gallagher, and the JS editorial board actually acknowledging that the embryos are alive?

On one hand, they speak as if embryos are inanimate raw material for research. On the other hand, the patent argument is based on a U.S. Supreme Court decision covering "life forms."

The whole patent matter is a custody case of sorts.

I think this editorial exposes something that the proponents of embryonic stem cell research like to avoid -- that the embryos are human life.

I'm not familiar with patent law, but is it absurd that "one person or organization could own the rights to life itself"?

Absolutely.

It's also absurd to pretend that there is no difference between adult stem cell research and embryonic stem cell research.