Greenpeace brought suit against patenting the destruction of human embryos in Europe

You may or may not have heard that recently a European Union court has ruled that the extraction of embryonic stem cells cannot be patented because it destroys a human embryo.  The court ruled:

“a process which involves removal of a stem cell from a human embryo at the blastocyst stage, entailing the destruction of that embryo, cannot be patented.”

Greenpeace had started this case in light of the debates about the European patent law. According to the EU patent directive, patents on human body parts, human genes and permits to plants and animals. Greenpeace, a number of objections to the European Patent Office has started, including patents on human embryos in eggs from the people, on human genes and on plant and livestock concerns. In parallel, an action against the patent of Oliver Bruestle before the Federal Court lodged after this had previously been contacted directly but was willing to change particularly contentious passages in his patent relating to the cloning of human embryos for the Dolly technique.

Greenpeace takes these actions against patents on life, because the organization revived in the extension of patent rights on the nature and abuse one sees an aberration of a patent right. Therefore, the organization shall include one against patents on human genes: These obstruct proven in many cases, research and development - to the detriment of patients and physicians. Instead, Greenpeace generally occurs for a clear limits in patent law over the living world - these relate to the limits with respect to a commercial use of the human body as well as the patenting of genetic resources.