Attorneys for Incyte Corporation of Palo Alto, CA are taking legal
action to protect against unlawful dissemination of the company’s
patented human growth hormone gene. Speaking On Condition Of Anonymity, a highly placed source in the company reported on company discussions. “Incyte has spent literally
hundreds of millions of dollars to isolate the gene for human growth
hormone,” a company spokesman explained, “and the value of the gene is
being degraded through dissemination that is not paid for.”
Incyte attorneys’ hopes have been buoyed by the recent Supreme Court
decision that said an Indiana farmer violated Monsanto Co.'s patents on
soybean seeds resistant to its weed-killer by growing the beans without
buying new seeds from the corporation. Monsanto had inserted into the
soybean genome a gene for Round-Up resistance it isolated from nature
and patented. The company cited Justice Kagan’s comment that the
Indiana farmer planted Monsanto's patented soybeans solely to make and
market replicas of them, thus depriving the company of the reward patent
law provides for the sale of each article. Kagan said, ‘Patent
exhaustion provides no haven for such conduct.’
Attorneys for
the genetic engineering company are arguing that when men ejaculate
into a woman, they are doing so “solely for the purpose of making
replicas” of the human growth hormone gene, among others among the
24,000 genes in human DNA. “Incyte owns the rights to the human growth
hormone gene,” the spokesman stated, “and our patent does not become
exhausted just because a man carries that gene in his sperm, a copy that
he did not purchase from us.”
Incyte hopes that
universities and private firms who have patented at least 4,000 human
genes or almost 20% of the human genome will join in the suit against
unauthorized, unlawful, uncompensated dissemination of their products.
“Men need to face the fact that American and foreign corporations and
universities own the rights to their genes and hence their sperm. They
must understand that the companies and universities have a right to be
compensated for dissemination of their products,” said Davis Longsdon, a
patent attorney not affiliated with either Incyte or Monsanto.
In their lawsuit, Incyte is demanding a fee of $1.00 for every
ejaculation into a female by an unlicensed male. “Masturbation doesn’t
qualify,” said company attorneys, “because the objective is not
dissemination of the patented gene.” The company spokesman admitted
that monitoring unauthorized spermic dissemination and collecting the
fee could be problematical. Industry insiders have said a consortium of
genetic engineering companies and universities is developing an
implantable microchip that would register ejaculations and would
transmit the data to a central collection agency. “Incyte estimates
that it could earn as much as $500 million per year if the monitoring
and reporting system were enabled,” stated the spokesman. Bloomberg
reported that Incyte stock rose 82.5 points in heavy trading shortly
after the news was made public.
