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The U.S. Supreme Court rules in Diamond v. Chakrabarty that a life form can be patented.

1980

The Story of The Patenting of Life
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A scientist at General Electric, Ananda Chakrabarty, applied for a patent on a genetically-modified strain of bacteria that he had "created" in 1972.

The U.S. Supreme Court awards him this patent in 1980 after it is challenged, declaring that “anything under the sun that is made by man” is eligible for patent protection, living, or otherwise (Sherkow & Greely, 2015).

This decision, along with the passage of the Bayh-Dole Act the same year, continues to open up the field of patenting to other forms of biological life, including seeds and human genes. As a result, this expands the ability of private corporations to patent cells for medical technologies, as well as indigenous seeds, thereby raising new bioethical questions.