There's a new wrinkle in the argument over patenting life: can you patent synthetic life?
Scientists at the J. Craig Venter Institute have applied for a U.S. patent on a minimal bacterial genome that they built themselves. According to the patent application, it's "a minimal set of protein-coding genes which provides the information required for replication of a free-living organism in a rich bacterial culture medium." The ETC group sent out a press release this morning which I have to say comes off as terribly alarmist using terms like "Microbesoft," evoking Dolly the cloned sheep and naming the organism Synthia.

The ETA group also says in April the institute filed an international patent application at the World Intellectual Property organization. Craig Venter is not named in the patent, which was filed on October 12, 2006.

http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2007/06/scientists_appl.html