The evolution of gene patents viewed from the United States Patent Office.

In my remarks here, I have necessarily limited myself to general principles of patent law that are applicable to a consideration of gene-related inventions. Were I still Commissioner of Patents and Trademarks, I would not let electrical engineers anywhere near the examination of applications for patents for gene-related inventions, just as I would not let the USPTO's many Ph.D.s in microbiology or genetics near the examination of complex applications on computer architecture or programming. The same should hold true for attorneys who prosecute patent applications. That is why the U.S. patent system works so well. There can be no discrimination in the system by the field of technology--a principle enshrined in Article 27 of the World Trade Organization's Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property. But we quite properly depend upon specialists to apply across-the-board general principles to very specialized technological fields of endeavor. This works very well in a system in which in the U.S., "everything under the sun made by humans" is patentable.