Conclusie AG Cruz Villalón over octrooieerbaarheid menselijk embryo

Conclusie AG Cruz Villalón, 17 juli 2014, International Stem Cell Corporation v Comptroller General of Patents, C-364/13.

Uit het perscommuniqué: "According to Advocate General Cruz Villalón, an ovum whose development has been stimulated without fertilisation and which is not capable of becoming a human being cannot be considered a human embryo. However, if this ovum is genetically manipulated in such a way that it can develop into a human being, it must be regarded as a human embryo and as such excluded from patentability. [...]

International Stem Cell Corporation (ISC), a biotechnology company, applied to the UK Intellectual Property Office for two national patents for a technology that produces pluripotent stem cells from parthenogenetically-activated oocytes. The Office rejected both applications on the grounds that the inventions in question entail uses and even the destruction of human embryos and are therefore not patentable under the Brüstle judgment of the Court of Justice. In this judgment the Court stated that any non-fertilised human ovum whose development has been stimulated by parthenogenesis and which is capable of commencing the process of development of a human being constitutes a “human embryo”. [...]

In his Opinion today, Advocate General Pedro Cruz Villalón considers that, when assessing if an unfertilised ovum should be regarded as a human embryo, the decisive criterion to be taken into consideration is whether it has the inherent capacity of developing into a human being. By contrast, the mere fact that an unfertilised ovum is capable of engaging in a process of cell division and differentiation similar to that of a fertilised ovum does not suffice in itself to consider it as a human embryo. The observations submitted by the parties as well as the explanations given by the High Court of Justice suggesting that the parthenotes, organisms resulting from parthenogenesis, do not as such have the inherent capacity of developing into a human being, the Advocate General proposes to the Court to exclude them from the definition of human embryos.

However, in the light of successful genetic manipulations conducted on mice, Mr Cruz Villalón cannot exclude the possibility that, in the future, human parthenotes can be altered genetically in such a way that they can develop to term and thus into a human being. For this reason, the Advocate General makes it clear that parthenotes can only be excluded from the...