ABSTRACT
This chapter provides the status and the state of US Patent Law as concerns biotechnology and morality. It explores that the issues in the United States are much simpler than they are in Europe. If biotechnology and its inventions are to be regulated in the US, it is not the function of the patent lawyers or the Patent Office to do so. Such regulation must and is in fact being done by other agencies of Government much better qualified for this task. In recent years, the US Congress has considered these concerns on several occasions, and there have been proposals to limit animal patents, i.e. patents covering animals. Patent offices and patent examiners generally do not have sufficient expertise or qualifications to judge morality or even societal risks of biotechnological inventions, except, where the immorality or the risks are perceived as so unacceptable by the vast majority of the members at large of that society.
