A bit of good news. Congress passed and the president signed a law (the America Invents Act, H.R. 1249) that includes an important, but not well-known, pro-life provision called the Weldon Amendment. The amendment prevents the U.S. Patent and Trade Office (USPTO) from issuing patents that are "directed to or encompassing a human organism."
Translation: no human is an "invention" or property to be licensed for financial gain.
The Weldon language used to be a pro-life "rider" that had to be attached annually to a spending bill. Its inclusion in the America Invents Act means that the ban is now permanent law.
UPDATE: my ever-so-smart colleague Bruce rightly mentioned to me that most people may not understand just what the patenting of human organism actually looks like in practice:
I think Nathanael Bennet over at the ACLJ blog answered your question best:
One of the most important practical effects of this [Weldon] language is that the Patent Office is not able to patent cloned human embryos or human embryos intended for research purposes.
Contact: Ashley Horne
Source: CitizenLink
