No patents for embryonic stem cell researchers in Europe

Poor embryonic stem cell researchers. The European Court of Justice has ruled that researchers can't patent the process of killing human embryos. Now let's listen to poor researchers complain about how they won't be able to make tons of money from patenting the killing of other human beings.

"It will unfortunately make it less likely that companies in Europe will invest in the research to develop treatments to use embryonic stem cells for treatment of human diseases," said Ian Wilmut, the British scientist who led the team that produced Dolly the cloned sheep.

Pete Coffey of University College London said it was the ECJ ruling was a "devastating decision" and Austin Smith, another stem cell expert at the University of Cambridge, said it left scientists "in a ridiculous position".

"We are funded to do research for the public good, yet prevented from taking our discoveries to the market place where they could be developed into new medicines," he said.

Note that this ruling doesn't prevent researchers from killing human embryos for research and doing embryonic stem cell research, it just prevents them from patenting their work and making boatloads of money on it. The winning plaintiff in this case was Greenpeace.