December 1, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The EU’s patent office has ruled that under the provisions of the European Patent Convention (EPC), it cannot offer a patent for the so-called “WARF/Thomson stem cell application” on the grounds that it would involve the destruction of human embryos. The application is for a method for obtaining embryonic stem cell cultures from primates, including humans, and was filed by the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF) in 1995.
The patent office board of appeal ruled that it is not possible to grant a patent for an invention which necessarily involves the use and destruction of human embryos. The EPC does not allow patenting inventions whose commercial exploitation would be contrary to public order or morality.
Wesley Smith, an American lawyer and writer on bioethics issues, said that the decision is remarkable in that it is the first time there has been an indication from the EU that the moral status of the human embryo is in question.
While a ruling from the patent office does not outlaw the use of embryos in research, Smith writes that it will “send a chill to those who would use embryos commercially.”
“In any event,” Smith wrote, “let us hear no more about religious zealots imposing their will on rational modernists. Europe is as secular a culture as you will find in the world.”
