ANIMAL RIGHTS

Patents were originally designed to reward technical inventions. However, animals and other living organisms are not human inventions and applying patents to them raises ethical questions. 

Patents on animals provide commercial incentives that can lead to a substantial increase in animal experiments, without medical necessity. First because experiments are conducted prior to the patent applications, to prove that the 'invention' works. And then because there is economic pressure to market the patented animal within the period of 20 years while the patent is valid. 

There is a huge gap between what might be considered as being necessary to achieve future medical benefit and the number of animal experiments being actually performed. Animal experiments have become a self purpose. In consequence, this development is in conflict with European animal welfare legislation which requires that animal experiments are reduced to what is absolutely necessary. 

In Great Britain, there were more than 4.1 million animal experiments in 2013. More than half of the animals were genetically engineered. In Germany the number of genetically engineered animals being used is also still increasing, and stands at around one million in 2014. 

Jane Goodall, who studied chimpanzees in the wild for many years, comments: "While on the one hand protection of great apes gets more and more support in society, on the other hand the desire of some companies to patent chimpanzees, our closest living relatives, is a step in the opposite direction. It seems to me shocking that a company should consider a great ape as a mere technical tool. If we allow that in this day and age people in the future will look back and say: How could they?"