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Some living things can be patented, but not all. Like any invention, a living thing must be "new" in order to be patented. More importantly, living organisms under consideration for patenting cannot be those that occur or exist in nature. Thus, one cannot obtain a patent on just any living creature, such as a mouse, because mice have been around for a long time. If someone makes a kind of mouse that never existed before, however, then that kind of mouse might be patented. For example:

• Microbes: As long ago as 1873, Louis Pasteur received a U.S. patent for yeast "free from organic germs or disease." With the growth of genetic engineering in the late 1970s, the patentability of living organisms was re-examined, and confirmed. A landmark case involved Ananda Chakrabarty's invention of a new bacterium genetically engineered to degrade crude oil. In 1980, the Supreme Court clearly stated that new microorganisms not found in nature, such as Chakrabarty's bacterium, were patentable. Chakrabarty received a patent in 1981 (U.S. Pat. No. 4,259,444). In the Chakrabarty decision, the Supreme Court stated that "anything under the sun that is made by the hand of man" is patentable subject matter. Therefore, if a product of nature is new, useful and nonobvious, it can be patented if it has been fashioned by humans.
• Plants: In 1930, the U.S. Congress passed the Plant Patent Act, which specifically provided patent protection for newly invented plants that are asexually reproduced. In 1970, Congress provided similar protection for newly invented sexually reproduced plants.
• Animals: In the 1980s, the question of whether multicellular animals could be patented was examined. The key case involved a new kind of "polyploid" oyster that had an extra set of chromosomes. This new, sterile oyster was edible all year round because it did not devote body weight to reproduction during the breeding season. The PTO found that such organisms were in fact new and therefore eligible for patenting. It found this particular type of oyster to be obvious, however, and thus did not allow a patent for it. Nonetheless, the polyploid oyster paved the way for the patenting of other nonnaturally occurring animals. In 1988, Philip Leder and Timothy Stewart were granted a patent on transgenic nonhuman mammals (U.S. Pat. No. 4,736,866) that covered the so-called Harvard mouse, which was genetically engineered to be a model for the study of cancer.
• Natural Compounds: Natural compounds, such as a human protein or the chemical that gives strawberries their distinctive flavor, are not themselves living, but occur in nature. Thus, they are new and can be patented only if they are somehow removed from nature. Therefore, a compound that is purified away from a strawberry, or a protein that is purified away from the human body can be patented in its purified state. Such a patent would not cover the strawberry or the person. The U.S. PTO does not allow anyone to patent a human being under any circumstances.

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