Rights to use organ transplants?

Genetic research: rights of use for organ transplantation and embryos?

The Munich club Testbiotech has announced in a press release published Wednesday that it has lodged an appeal with the European Patent Office against a patent of Merck Serono. Among other things, Merck Serono has filed a patent for the production of human oocytes.According to Testbiotech, the patent contradicts the prohibition of patenting „of the human body at all stages of its development, which is enshrined in European patent law“.

But in addition to the ethical component, Testbiotech points to additional facts that make the patent applications of the company appear in a strange light. The patent, which has now come under criticism, is just one of several patents that Serono filed until 2005. Serono was bought in 2006 by Merck. The Swiss company was considered the market leader in fertility therapies. But now it turns out that Serono, according to the weekly „The time“, „ in addition to active ingredients also human ova, sperm and even embryos wanted to have patented“. And until 2005, with the involvement of a, according to Testbiotech, dubious company, called Applied Research Systems ARS Holding, filed patents, some of which have already been granted. The company was based in Curacao in the Netherlands Antilles. Testbiotech apparently took an investigative look and found out that ARS is in a kind of gray area under patent law.

In addition to an appeal to the Patent Office, Testbiotech addressed Merck Serono directly in an open letter and made a call for proposals. It is hoped that the association can intervene to the effect that the human organism and its parts can not be patented and that an ethical component is not sacrificed in favor of the economic one. (Thorsten Fischer, Naturopath Osteopathy, 17.04.2010)

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