Diamond v. Chakrabarty

1980-06-16

Headline: Human-made genetically engineered bacteria are patentable, as the Court allowed patents on living microorganisms and cleared the way for inventors to seek protection for lab-created organisms used in cleanup and industry.

Holding: The Court held that a living, human-made microorganism is patentable subject matter under the patent statute because an engineered bacterium can qualify as a "manufacture" or "composition of matter."

Real World Impact:

Allows inventors to patent laboratory-made microorganisms like engineered bacteria.
Enables commercial development of engineered microbes for uses such as oil-spill cleanup.
Leaves safety and policy concerns to Congress and regulators, not the courts.

Topics: biotechnology patents, genetically engineered bacteria, patent law, environmental cleanup

Summary

Background

A microbiologist assigned his patent application to General Electric after creating a Pseudomonas bacterium engineered to contain multiple plasmids that break down different crude-oil components. He filed 36 claims: methods to make the bacterium, an inoculum carrier, and claims to the bacterium itself. Examiners accepted the process and inoculum claims but rejected the claims to the living bacterium as not patentable.

Reasoning

The Court asked whether a living, human-made microorganism fits the statute’s broad categories such as "manufacture" or "composition of matter." Reading the law broadly, the majority emphasized that inventions made by human ingenuity, which have new forms, properties, and uses not found in nature, qualify. The Court distinguished purely natural discoveries and laws of nature from human-made organisms and declined to substitute judicial judgment for legislative choices about social or safety policy.

Real world impact

By holding that a laboratory-created bacterium can be patented, the ruling allows inventors to seek exclusive rights that may encourage investment and commercialization of engineered microbes, for example in faster oil-spill cleanup. The decision does not resolve later questions like novelty or obviousness, and the Court noted Congress or regulators may change policy or set limits in the future.

Dissents or concurrances

A dissent warned that Congress had previously legislated limited protection for new plants and explicitly excluded bacteria from one plant-protection act, arguing courts should not extend patent monopolies over living organisms without clearer congressional direction.