Patentability of the Harvard transgenic mouse in Canada (08-2000) In a decision A-334-98 dated August 3, 2000, the Federal Court of Canada (FCC) comes back on the definition of the word "invention" (Any new and useful art, process, machine, manufacture or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement in any art, process, machine, manufacture or composition of matter). The Court opinion is based on the decision Diamond, Commissionner of Patents and Trademarks v. Chakrabarty of the US Supreme Court which had permitted the patentability of a micro-organism (US 4,259,444). The FCC considers that an oncomouse is a "composition of matter" according to patent claim 1, because it is a mouse in which one has introduced an oncogene sequence. The FCC also underlines that the oncomouse is not a discovery of a natura phenomenom, even if mice with a genetic predisposition to develop cancer exist in the nature. The FCC precises that to permit the patentability of living organisms as "composition of matter" does not involve the patentability of the human beings, the patent being a form of ownership of property and the possession of human beings being impossible according to the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The Patents Commissionner has a two-month period in order to appeal against this decision in front of the Supreme Court of Canada. Without appeal, the Canadian patent will be granted, as have been already granted the american US 4,736,866, european EP 0 169 672 (pdf form) and japan JP 61 081 743 (pdf form) patents.