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21 Santa Clara Computer & High Tech. L.J. 383 (2004-2005)
Half-Human Creatures, Plants & Indigenous Peoples: Musings on Ramifications of Western Notions of Intellectual Property and the Newman-Rifkin Attempt to Patent a Theoretical Half-Human Creature

handle is hein.journals/sccj21 and id is 393 raw text is: HALF-HUMAN CREATURES, PLANTS &
INDIGENOUS PEOPLES: MUSINGS ON
RAMIFICATIONS OF WESTERN NOTIONS OF
INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY AND THE NEWMAN-
RIFKIN ATTEMPT TO PATENT A THEORETICAL
HALF-HUMAN CREATURE
Valerie J. Phillipst
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction  ................................................................................................ 385
I. Origins of Half-Human Creatures in the Plant Patent and Plant Variety
Protection Acts and in the Corresponding Evisceration of the Product
of  N ature  D octrine  ............................................................................. 391
A. The Plant Patent Act of 1930 and the Plant Variety Protection Act of
19 70  ................................................................................................. 3 9 2
B. The Product of Nature Doctrine .................................................... 397
C.  The  Ayahuasca   Patent Case .............................................................. 402
D .  N aturally  Colored  Cotton  ................................................................. 407
t   Assistant Professor of Law and Co-Director of Native American Law Center at the
University of Tulsa College of Law, J.D. at University of California, Berkeley (Boalt), and B.A. in
Political Science, with honors, at Wellesley College. I would like to thank Jeanette Wolfley of the
Tribal Attorneys Office of the Shoshone-Bannock tribes on the Fort Hall Indian Reservation in
Idaho for providing me with my first hands-on introduction to legal issues confronting American
Indians. While in Idaho, I decided to move from practice into academia, prompted by my concern
over the implications of this topic after reading a 1994 book written by Tom Greaves, Intellectual
Property Rights for Indigenous Peoples: A Source Book. I would also like to thank Gloria
Valencia-Weber for her continuing encouragement as well as the Native Law faculty at the
University of Tulsa. I first presented the ideas in this paper as a speaker on biotech patents,
genomic research, and indigenous resources at the Symposium on Traditional Knowledge,
Intellectual Property and Indigenous Culture in New York City in February of 2002 at the
Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law. Other sources of inspiration include Keith Aoki, a co-
presenter at that conference, who told me about Kloppenburg's book, presentations given at the
International Society of Ethnobiology at the 7th Congress on Ethnobiology, Biocultural Diversity
and Benefits Sharing at the University of Georgia in 2000, the Protecting Knowledge: Traditional
Resource Rights in the New Millennium Conference at the University of British Columbia also in
2000, and the United Nations Working Group on Indigenous Populations. Thanks are also due to
Tamara Piety, Johnny Parker, and G. William Rice for critiquing my paper and to Rodney Nixon
for his research assistance.

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