Under Article 225, paragraph 1, II of the 1988 Brazilian Federal
Constitution, it is incumbent upon the Government to preserve the
diversity and integrity of the country's genetic assets and to
monitor the entities involved in the research and handling of
genetic material, which shows the legislator's care and concern
with the results and effects of activities related to biotechnology
or genetic engineering. In the light of the Convention on
Biological Diversity, "biotechnology" means any
technological application that uses biological systems, living
organisms, or derivatives thereof, to make or modify products or
processes.
One biotechnology-related issue which is raising extensive
discussions and controversies is the legality of patenting life
forms. The leading case of this subject was judged by the United
States Supreme Court, where General Electric and its employee
Ananda Mohan Chakrabarty filed in 1972 a patent application on a
bacteria whose function was to
