The European Patent Office (EPO) granted the Oncomouse patent to DuPont in 1992, despite opposition by animal rights groups who charged it was cruel to engineer an animal to die a painful death. The EPO ruled that the public benefit of the transgenic mouse outweighed its suffering. The British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection opposed the patent, and the EPO resumed opposition proceedings that dragged on for nine years. On Nov. 7, 2001 the EPO opposition division finally issued a patent in amended form for the engineered animal. Although the decision is subject to appeal, it does make patents on life forms more secure in Europe for all scientists.
The Oncomouse case shows that the European Patent Office is reluctant to consider the ethical implications of the patent system as those factors are better left to regulatory authorities. Administrators overseeing biological research should revisit their policy on patenting to ...
