Home » Archive 1996
Decision on oncomouse patent delayed
The official Opposition hearings on the European oncomouse patent broke up in disarray and confusion at the end of November. The opposition, representing various animal rights, religious and environmentalist groups, presented 17 different appeals against the patent, mainly on moral grounds. A clause in the European Patent Convention states that a patent cannot be granted if it is contrary to public morality.
The patent applies to any non-human mammal genetically engineered for increased susceptibility to cancer. Objections to such breadth, implying that oncorabbits, oncocats and oncogiraffes might also be developed, seemed to be taken seriously by the European Patent Office (EPO) opposition board. Patentee Harvard University was asked to redraft the patent to restrict its claims to rodents or experimental animals.
In all, seven of the patent claims were redrafted and presented to the tribunal on the final morning of the hearings. However, the EPO took the rare decision that, after a week of oral presentations, the proceedings should continue in writing. All groups opposing the patent will have an opportunity to comment on the redrafted claims, and the EPO will then decide which, if any, of the new claims it will accept. And it still has to decide ultimately whether to uphold or revoke the patent. There is no time limit on the written process, and, as we went to press, there was still no sign of any decision.
The decision is eagerly awaited. Since the oncomouse patent application was filed with the EPO in 1985, more than 300 other applications for patents on animals have been received. Only three have so far been granted, and decisions on the remainder await the outcome of this case.