Gods and Monsters
By Mark Dowie,
Mother Jones (January/February 2004)
| 12. 31. 2003
ON APRIL FOOLS' DAY 1998, within hours of reading U.S. patent application No. 08/993,564, the Honorable Bruce Lehman did something no other commissioner of patents had done in the 200-year history of America's oldest government agency. He stepped before a cluster of microphones and announced that the patent would never be approved. No half-human "monsters" would be patented, Lehman declared angrily, or any other "immoral inventions."
Legal scholars -- accustomed to an office bound by statute to remain silent until patents are approved or rejected -- were shocked. Forgoing the traditional 18-month review period, Lehman had issued a marching order to his staff to reject a patent application they had barely read, rather as if a judge had instructed a jury that the defendant was guilty before the trial began. Furthermore, to support his decision, Lehman cited an 1817 court ruling that excluded inventions "injurious to the well-being, good policy, or good morals of society." But patent law had long since been amended to say that if an applicant could claim constructive use for a patent, he or she could...
Related Articles
By Ali Breland, The Atlantic | 08.20.2024
“Joining us now is Steve Sailer, who I find to be incredibly interesting, and one of the most talented noticers,” Charlie Kirk said on his internet show in October. Kirk, the 30-year-old founder of Turning Point USA, a right-wing...
By Megan Agnew, The Times | 09.15.2024
Faith Hartley always wanted two girls — a blonde and a redhead. “I thought, I’ll have one that looks like me,” says Hartley, 35, smoothing her golden hair in the Los Angeles valley home she shares with her husband, Neil...
By Emily R. Klancher Merchant, Los Angeles Review of Books | 08.22.2024
IN THE Operation Varsity Blues scandal of 2019, 50 wealthy parents were charged with trying to get their children into elite universities through fraudulent means. The story dramatically demonstrated the lengths to which some parents will go to ensure their...
By Julia Brown, The Conversation | 08.16.2024
With their primary goal to advance scientific knowledge, most scientists are not trained or incentivized to think through the societal implications of the technologies they are developing. Even in genomic medicine, which is geared toward benefiting future patients, time and...