I am against changing or widening the concept of what we define to be human today. And only human beings have “rights”.

No creatures, humanoids, living or non-living, other than humans, have rights. However, this is slightly off-topic. The point is, we grant a patent to someone who invents a robot. This is because the particular process or innovation used in creating/manufacturing that robot is to be recognized. If someone is able to create a new organism (which has either never been created in Nature or has become extinct), using some other scientific innovation, why shouldn’t we recognize that?

A patent by itself does not guarantee any commercial benefits. It recognizes that the process or technique or idea behind an invention (the artificial life we’re hypothesizing should be an invention, not a discovery of some strands of DNA like Ramana pointed out above), was uniquely established for the first time by the owner of that patent.

It is only if the invented organism proves a commercially viable product, will the patent owner be able to benefit from his patent.

I understand this can be deeply offending and creepy to some folks. It isn’t to me, probably since I’m pretty much a materialist…

I think, though, they are already philosophically complex. What exactly is the dividing line between creating a humanoid and an animal? And if we are able to patent organisms, why not human-like organisms as well? Movements such as the “Great Ape Personhood Project” are already suggesting that what we consider to be “human” should perhaps be widened. What about if we create an organism that is vastly above the intelligence of an animal—but still markedly less intelligent than an average human being? Should such creatures have rights? Perhaps it’s just me, but there is something decidedly creepy about the patenting of anything more advanced than an amoeba.

The Imugi: Depends on what you call existence. A patented life-saving drug pill is also composed of nothing but some molecular matter. Should the company that spends billions of dollars in R&D developing such a drug not patent it? Coming to what I think is your real point – commercialization of life – I’m not disturbed so far, but we do need to be careful.

We have domesticated dogs, horses, cattle, and use them for their milk or for labor, already. New organisms developed and patented by different companies for different purposes – one may help cure a disease, another may be a great household pet – is also something I can look at quite comfortably within next few decades. When this process reaches a point where we start creating humanoids, that’s when things will really start to get ethically and philosophically complex!