Plant Patents

"Writing three years after the passage of the 1930 Act, R. Cook, Editor of the Journal of Heredity, commented: “It is a little hard for plant men to understand why [Art. I, § 8] of the Constitution should not have been earlier construed to include the promotion of the art of plant breeding. The reason for this is probably to be found in the principle that natural products are not patentable.” Florists Exchange and Horticultural Trade World, July 15, 1933, p. 9. In 1873, the Patent Office granted Louis Pasteur a patent on “yeast, free from organic germs of disease, as an article of manufacture.” And in 1967 and 1968, immediately prior to the passage of the Plant Variety Protection Act, that Office granted two patents which, as the petitioner concedes, state claims for living micro-organisms. See Reply Brief for Petitioner 3, and n. 2. In enacting the Plant Patent Act, Congress addressed both of these concerns. It explained at length its belief that the work of the plant breeder “in aid of nature” was patentable invention. S.Rep.No.315, 71st Cong., 2d Sess., 6-8 (1930); H.R.Rep.No.1129, 71st Cong., 2d Sess., 7-9 (1930). And it relaxed the written description requirement in favor of “a description … as complete as is reasonably possible.” 35 U.S.C. § 162. No Committee or Member of Congress, however, expressed the broader view, now urged by the petitioner, that the terms “manufacture” or “composition of matter” exclude living things. The sole support for that position in the legislative history of the 1930 Act is found in the conclusory statement of Secretary of Agriculture Hyde, in a letter to the Chairmen of the House and Senate Committees considering the 1930 Act, that “the patent laws … at the present time are understood to cover only inventions or discoveries in the field of inanimate nature.” See S.Rep.No.315, supra, at Appendix A; H.R.Rep.No.1129, supra, at Appendix A. Secretary Hyde’s opinion, however, is not entitled to controlling weight. His views were solicited on the administration of the new law and not on the scope of patentable subject matter – an area beyond his competence. Moreover, there is language in the House and Senate Committee Reports suggesting that to the extent Congress considered the matter it found the Secretary’s dichotomy unpersuasive. The Reports observe: There is a clear and logical distinction between the discovery of a new variety of plant and of certain inanimate things, such, for example, as a new and useful natural mineral. The mineral is created wholly by nature unassisted by man… . On the other hand, a plant discovery resulting from cultivation is unique, isolated, and is not repeated by nature, nor can it be reproduced by nature unaided by man… . S.Rep.No.315, supra, at 6; H.R.Rep.No.1129, supra, at 7 (emphasis added). Congress thus recognized that the relevant distinction was not between living and inanimate things, but between products of nature, whether living or not, and human-made inventions. Here, respondent’s micro-organism is the result of human ingenuity and research. Hence, the passage of the Plant Patent Act affords the Government no support."