The mammoth in the patent system

Firms working on de-extinction of long vanished species are banking on wide patent protection to make colossal profit

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THIS COULD well be the new century of the woolly mammoth, the most iconic of our extinct species, which is set to make an epic return to our world. The hairy, spiral-tusked humongous beasts that once ranged across the icy northern hemisphere and even parts of South America some half a million years ago will be soon found wandering in Siberia, we are told. True, Steven Spielberg brought the dinosaur back and firmly planted it in our consciousness with his blockbuster film. Jurassic Park was pure fantasy; the woolly mammoth, however, is for real. The colossal ancestor of the elephant will be brought back from extinction, in some form, and released in select places, according to US journals and academic researchers.

De-extinction, which is the term for bringing back long vanished species through gene-editing tools and reproductive technologies, is coming into investor spotlight. Money is flowing into such ventures but success will hinge on a critical factor: patents. Will the US Patent Office grant a patent on the woolly mammoth, actually a variant of the historical beast, and allow a company to profit from a monopoly on something that was once natural to the environment?

Woolly mammoths roamed across our ancient world for millennia and were known to flourish till 20,000 years ago, but within 10,000 years their numbers had dwindled to half and were reduced to isolated populations off the coasts of Siberia and Alaska. They disappeared around 4,000 years ago. A splendid documentary, Titans of the Ice Age, captures the majesty of the mammoths and other animals like dire wolves (now a major focus of de-extinction experiments), ground sloths and sabre-toothed cats that dominated the harsh Pleistocene Age.