In other words, it was a patent about an oil-eating bacterium which consist of 3 claims. The first two claims was with regards to the method of making the bacterium as well as the application of the bacteria to oil. The third claim was of that of the bacterium itself. The first two claims was accepted and the …show more content…
The primary issue is whether the bacterium that was genetically engineered constitutes to the meaning of Section 101 of Title 35 U.S.C. from which it is “manufacture” or “composition of matter”.
The secondary issues that arose was that microorganisms has been excluded from the Plant Patent Act,1930 as well as the Plant Variety Protection Act,1970.This is because of patent protection of certain asexually reproduced plants as well as protection for reproduced plants in the patents accordingly. However in the latter patent, bacteria was prohibited from protection. It was argued by petitioner that neither Act would be necessary due to the terms “manufacture” or “composition of matter” is not inclusive of living things.
In addition , it also was in question whether or not the microorganism was patentable without authorization of Congress. The petitioner argues that the Congress should decide the patentability of the respondent’s invention. The views of the court on these issues will be discussed further. …show more content…
The court rejected the argument because of the clear distinction of the discovery of new variety of plant and inanimate things from which later Congress recognised distinction between the product of nature and human made inventions instead of that of the court. As the bacteria was the result of research and human ingenuity, it resulted in neither the Plant Patent Act or the 1970 Plant Variety Protection Act allowed no support for the Government. However, plant patent act was later viewed as appropriate due to true-to-type reproduction where the act extended the protection. The court ruled that legislative history did not support exclusion and there was nothing in exclusion of bacteria from plant variety.
With regards to that of microorganism being not qualified as a patentable subject matter. The court held that Congress do have the right to define the limitation of it but the court stated that the judicial department will say what the law is. The court performed their duty to deduce the language the Congress employed. The court was obligated to take statutes as found and using legislation and statutory purpose to guide them if ambiguity appeared. Hence the final decision of the court for the argument was that the unambiguous language of § 101 fairly embraces respondent's