Skip to main content

The timeline can be navigated with the “Scroll Left” and “Scroll Right” buttons or by dragging the pointer to a date on the timeline waveform (located at the bottom of the screen on the desktop version and on the left of the screen on mobile). To filter by a particular topic and see a smaller section of the data, make a selection on the dropdown “Filters” menu or click “Search” to do a keyword search. Hover over the abbreviated filter tags in the blue boxes to see the complete name of the filter, or click a filter to display all the data with this tag. If you want to take a deeper dive into a specific topic by viewing a narrative essay page and a curated timeline, click on “Stories.”

Read More

Plant Patent Act passed.

1930

The Story of The Patenting of Life
GEN
LLP
HISS

The act allows patents only for asexually reproduced plants. Plants can be patented by grafting, budding, cuttings, layering, or division, but not by seeds. Introduced by the nursery industry, the act is the first time that the possibility of "inventing" a plant through hybridization is proposed. In other words, the "new" plant is determined to be separate from the original plant it is derived from. This legal recognition sets the stage for the patenting of human DNA that will later be legalized by the state.