British woman files patent application on herself

LONDON, Feb 29 (Reuters) - A British woman has become the first person to attempt to patent herself, the national patent office said on Tuesday. "I can confirm that we have received an application with the title 'myself' from Donna Rawlinson MacLean," the patent office's Brian Caswell said. Britain's Guardian newspaper said MacLean, a poet and casino waitress from Bristol in western England, was angered at the patenting of gene sequences by businesses. "It has taken 30 years of hard labour for me to discover and invent myself, and now I wish to protect my invention from unauthorised exploitation, genetic or otherwise," Maclean told the newspaper. Caswell said the full details of application GB0000180.0 would be published in 18 months. "It is not really worth patenting something unless you make a lot of money from it," he added.