Human Genome Patenting - Term Paper Example

Pioneering medical science conundrums include abortion, organ transplants, surrogate motherhood, euthanasia, and brain death.

One of the most contentious issues coming up over the next few years will surely be whether to allow human genomes to be patented. Human rights advocates are concerned that allowing patents will infringe on human dignity by permitting certain organizations to keep records of a person's genome records and is an invasion of privacy, sort of (Patrinos & Ansorge, 2005, p. 391). Human genome patents are shaping up as a huge social controversy because of their far-reaching implications on research such as those dealing with genetic defects that can cause inherited diseases. Patents are crucial to encourage researchers so that their efforts will be amply rewarded, similar to the copyrights of authors and artists who want royalties for their creative talents. Patents in the context of medical research have effects on how well human beings can live their lives, whether disease-free or not, for example.

Patents on human genomes form part of intellectual property rights that are meant to benefit society by encouraging medical scientific research, innovations, and vital technology transfers in an orderly process that will benefit all humankind (ibid.); however, an excellent example of freely allowing anybody to utilize a new scientific discovery that has shown a lot of tremendous benefits is that of the Internet technology. The inventors of the Internet had 2 specifications regarding its use: it must be free for anyone to access and no one controls it. 

Unfortunately for some people who advocate for patenting and licensing genomes, it is still in a very developmental stage with regards to the issue but Congress should be allowed to grant patents for human genomes to protect the rights of all innovators. It is a fact the legal system is antiquated and has not kept up with huge strides in the fields of medical research and scientific technologies. In other words, there are no laws yet that govern this new medical field, and legal experts, medical research professionals and ethicists are still in a quandary on what steps to take in this regard. Patents have a big influence, especially in a knowledge-based era in a global economy and whoever holds a patent is given a huge potential financial reward for his pioneering efforts like in the bio-technology sector as legal protection.

Despite the potential controversies it will generate, some jurisdictions in the world had granted patents to generate enthusiasm for investors to put their money into research and to provide long-term financial security to those who worked on these innovative technologies. A lot of professional groups composed of scientists and trade groups from the biotechnology industry had questioned the propriety of granting the patents; those who had applied for and were granted said questionable patents justified it as essential for commercial development in medical or pharmaceutical products using the sequenced genomes (Barton, 1994, p. 6). There are also potential conflicts with regard to genome patents because of so many overlaps. The courts will certainly have a hard time determining which claims will eventually prevail if ever a suit is filed because there is big commercial value in human genome sequences where this is useful in formulating medical products that have a link to genetically-based diseases, those genetically-expressed proteins whose functions in the human body processes are identifiable in a clear manner or can be used in medical diagnostics (Scherer, 2005, p. 37). The impact on health care will be tremendous, such as allowing only the rich people to avail of genetic tests to have designer babies, financial ability to pay for expensive medical procedures, etc