Can You Copywrite Your Own DNA?

With all the controversy about genetic engineering, cloning, etc., it occurred to me that the large firms will probably stand to make piles of money…

I would think you probably could, but you would first have to catagorize it. Good luck!

I know a guy who was trying to do it by presenting his DNA as music and copywriting that. I never heard if he was sucessfull though.

clarification: I do not know the guy personally. I read it somewhere. It was more than a year ago and I can’t find the article now.

I seriously doubt that one can copyright something that is naturally occurring. Copyrights are for creative works: written material, music, the visual arts, etc. Maybe one could patent one’s own DNA, but I doubt it.

From the Copyright office of the LOC:

So the answer is “no, you can’t.” You didn’t write it. Therefore it’s not an “original work of authorship.”

Hope this helps.

You can only copright what you have created? So could parents copyright a childs DNA? Could BioEngeneers copyright GM crops?

I think this is somthing that will need to be looked in the near future, I think it’s more licky to happen with GM crops (super toamtoes etc) that Humans, initially at least.

So is God the author of our DNA… or is it your parents?

You can only copyright what you have authored. You do not author the DNA sequence of your offspring: it happens as a natural process of conception.

Genetically engineered crops may be subject to patent, but copyright still does not apply.

AFAIK, DNA is not copyrighted, it is patented.

If you come up with a use or treatment based on a specific sequence of DNA, you can patent it. I don’t think you can simply patent your genome. It’s not clear that you own your genome anyway.

Genes can and are patented. In fact the gene for breast cancer is patented, and anytime anyone is tested for this gene, part of the testing fee is paid to the patent holder.

I don’t disagree with your statement about the gene for breast cancer being patented, bio-brat, but if the patent holders get a royalty every time a test is done, then it almost certainly has to do with them holding a patent on the test rather than on the gene.

Yes and no. Their patent covers any use for “diagnostic and therapeutic applications”. So they do indeed make the test, but no one else is allowed to develop one.

Here’s a link for the company who holds the patent:

This is a very big controversy in the Molecular Biology world right now.

DNA wouldn’t fit into copyright laws. It isn’t expression - it doesn’t express the creativity of any human author. It also suffers from the defect of being functional. Copyright does not protection functional featrues. Patent law is the appropriate realm (if any) for protecting DNA.

Copyright requires some creative expression on the part of its author. So, sitting down and putting a group of names in alphabetical order won’t get you a copyright in the list of names - its too ordinary of an order. Put a list of names such that they all seem to spell out meaningful sentences, and you might have a copyright.
Even setting aside whether children could themselves could be subject to copyright, procreating is to ordinary to be creative for the meaning of copyright law.

So copywrite is the wrong word.

Since it seems obvious that various DNA sequences will be patented, couldn’t someone who’s the lucky recipient, of say, a natural immunity to disease patent their own genome?
I’m just thinking down the road, when people will be picking out “designer” babies. The raw material would have to have come from somewhere. Just curious, is all.

Tedster, copywrite is almost always the wrong word. Please use copyright more often than not.

DNA sequences have been patented. IIRC, you need to identify a seqence of genes and tell us what it does to recieve a patent. Simply having DNA in your body won’t get you a patent. Consider bio-brat’s post, that explains a gene was patented for a particular purpose.

The US Supreme Court ruled in a landmark 1980 case that lvigin organisms can be patented if they meet the standards of patentability (novel usage, most likely). Since that decision, more than 80 organisms have been patened, including a genetically-engineered mouse. From Rifkin Files Human-Chimp Chimaera Patent and verifiable elsewhere.

Conceptual artist, Larry Miller, of the “Gates of Heck” was selling personalized documents that claim to copyright the expression of your DNA - i.e. YOU - as an original work. These documents have not been tested in the legal system. After consulting with a lawyer, it was determined that both a patent and a copyright are necessary. FRom Own your DNA - and get it in writing.

In recent news there have been reports of a company willing to copyright a celebrity’s DNA at $10,000 a pop. It may be a silly idea, but it seems there’s nothing to prevent you or I from copyrighting ourselves. Be sure to get a patent, though.

The issue of patenting genes has been raised most recently with regard to people who appear to be AIDS-resistant. The consensus seems to be that if researchers decide to patent someone’s genes, the patent-holders are entitled to any benefits, while the actual possessor (owner?) of the genes gets nothing.

Not sure how that would apply if you tried to patent your own genes, or whether you could be granted a patent without defining the usefulness of your particular genetic makeup.

A few articles:

Whose Body Is It Anyway?

Who Owns Your Genes?

You can not get a patent on a human. You can only get a patent on a genome if it is engineered in such a way that you have manipulated to the point that it no longer occurs in nature. OR you can patent a gene, which would fall under discovery.

In other words, I cannot patent a mouse a rat a snake a bacterium or any other being. But I CAN patent a gene DISCOVERY, or a bacterium that I have manipulated to produce a drug product or mammalian cell that I have genetically engineered.

I suppose that you could put a copywright on your genome, but unless you have a clone hanging around I wouldn’t worry about anyone using it.

In the foggy depths of my mind I seem to recall that someone once tried to copywrite (or patent) his own fingerprint. Searching hasn’t been fruitful. Does anyone remember anything, or am I hallucinating again.