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2 San Diego Just. J. 209 (1994)
Property Rights in Living Things: Difficulties with Reproduction and Infringement

handle is hein.journals/tjeflr16 and id is 217 raw text is: PROPERTY RIGHTS IN LIVING THINGS: DIFFCULTIES WITH REPRODUCTION AND INFRINGEMENT What happens in the wild? In the wild? When they breed in the wild, Grant said. When they make a nest. Oh, they can't do that, Wu said. None of our animals is capable of breeding. That's why we have this nursery. It's the only way to replace stock in Jurassic Park.' As the characters in that popular motion picture soon dis- covered, nature finds ways to reproduce itself if given the chance. While recreating dinosaurs from ancient Deoxyribonucleic Acid (hereinafter DNA) samples may be farfetched by today's stan- dards, the problem of controlling the reproduction of new life forms is real. Rapid advances in biotechnology have allowed scientists to insert a desired gene directly into a fertilized egg, in effect creating a new form of life which would not have occurred naturally. The possible commercial applications of this technol- ogy have spurred the growth of a biotechnology industry trying to meet the demand for its inventions and has added to the sum of scientific knowledge in the process. The rapid growth of the biotechnology industry has lead to a dramatic increase in the number of requests for patent protection and certification of new forms of life. While these life forms may not be new in the sense that a patented mouse still looks like a mouse, every protected variety of plant and animal has been en- gineered to carry a desirable trait.2 Scientists seek protection for these new forms of life to recover their development costs and prevent others from profiting from their research. Property rights in living things create a unique problem not present in a typical invention: plants and animals can reproduce on their own. This type of self-infringement is not always pro- vided for under federal intellectual property laws and, even when it is, it is subject to different interpretations. This Note will ad- 1. MICHAEL CRICHTON, JURASSIC PARK 108 (paperback edition, 1991). 2. A variety is protected when a person is granted exclusive rights to his inven- tion under the appropriate act of Congress.

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