[Mb-civic] U.S. Denies Patent for a Too-Human Hybrid

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U.S. Denies Patent for a Too-Human Hybrid

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A19781-2005Feb12.html

(excerpt)

A New York scientist's seven-year effort to win a patent on a
laboratory-conceived creature that is part human and part animal ended in
failure Friday, closing a historic and somewhat ghoulish chapter in American
intellectual-property law.

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office rejected the claim, saying the
hybrid -- designed for use in medical research but not yet created -- would
be too closely related to a human to be patentable.

Paradoxically, the rejection was a victory of sorts for the inventor, Stuart
Newman of New York Medical College in Valhalla, N.Y. An opponent of patents
on living things, he had no intention of making the creatures. His goal was
to set a legal precedent that would keep others from profiting from any
similar "inventions."



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