The Law of the North

But while the mouse means little to Harvard financially, the case it created, Harvard v. Commissioner of Patents, will be a landmark in Canadian patent law.

The case deals directly with the heart of the patent code: the definition of the word invention itself.

The Canadian Patent Act of 1869 defines an invention as "any art, process, machine, manufacture or composition of matter" that is new, useful and isn't obvious. Over the years the oncomouse case has revolved around whether animals should be considered "compositions of matter," "manufactures" or both.

The majority opinion, written by Justice Marshall Rothstein and joined by Justice A. M. Linden, takes a sweeping view of inventions that includes transgenic organisms under the category of compositions of matter.

"The language of patent law is broad and general and is to be given wide scope because inventions are, necessarily, unanticipated and unforeseeable," Rothstein wrote. "Nothing in the term composition of matter suggests that living things are excluded from the definition."

The court rejected the government's argument that the oncomouse is not an invention because scientists do not have control over some of its features, like tail length and eye color, arguing that those characteristics are irrelevant to the animal's usefulness and novelty.

The Justices also made a key distinction between the laws of nature, which were used to create the mouse and cannot be patented, and the mouse itself, the creative product of scientists.