Evidence: historical governance case. Imported from the supplied 65-Case Master Edition, dated September 19, 2026. Source links and classifications are retained as an attributed case account; import is not an independent source review.

Case at a glance

Case number
014
Date / range
1990
Sector
Consent, ownership, and biospecimens
Genetic asset
Excised tissue and the Mo cell line
Security principle
Biospecimen Control Is Not One Right

Event summary

Moore v. Regents separated several questions that are often collapsed into one: ownership of removed tissue, a physician's disclosure duties, consent to research, and commercial interests in a resulting cell line. Genetic security must model those rights separately.

Source: Court opinion — Moore v. Regents Of The University Of California.

Source: pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov — Moore v. Regents Of The University Of California source 2.

The case in context

John Moore's treatment, retained biological material, and the development of a commercial cell line brought several kinds of control into one dispute. The California Supreme Court rejected the conversion claim while allowing claims concerning disclosure and informed consent to proceed. The result was not a universal declaration about who owns all human DNA.

The case is useful because custody, ownership, permission, and financial interests do different work. A laboratory can document how material moved through research without resolving whether a patient received the necessary information. A specimen ledger and a consent process should therefore be connected, but neither can substitute for the other.

Acquisition and processing

clinical specimen → retained research material → transformed cell line → patent/commercial value → undisclosed interests → litigation

The sequence of events

  1. clinical specimen
  2. retained research material
  3. transformed cell line
  4. patent/commercial value
  5. undisclosed interests
  6. litigation

What became inferable or exposed

Excised tissue and the Mo cell line

Moore v. Regents separated several questions that are often collapsed into one: ownership of removed tissue, a physician's disclosure duties, consent to research, and commercial interests in a resulting cell line. Genetic security must model those rights separately.

Security dimensions

Confidentiality

The confidentiality question concerns excised tissue and the mo cell line. Exposure and further inference must be distinguished from the fact of collection or availability.

Integrity

The integrity question is whether the described material, permissions, processing, or interpretation can be relied upon. Biospecimen Control Is Not One Right identifies the particular boundary examined here.

Availability

Access and continuity are assessed for the described event; potential effects are not presented as confirmed outages or losses.

Provenance

The relevant chain follows excised tissue and the mo cell line through the stages shown below. Missing public detail is not proof that internal records did not exist.

GeneticSecurity.org analysis

Genetic Exposure Radius

Not assessed

No single level is assigned where the supplied dossier gives a range, conditional outcome, or broad institutional consequence. The affected parties and proposed assessment are shown separately.

Confidence: not assigned. Classification: GeneticSecurity.org analysis.

Genetic Persistence Risk

Not assessed

Persistence depends on the specific biological material or information retained. A potential effect is not treated as an observed genomic disclosure.

Confidence: not assigned. Classification: GeneticSecurity.org analysis.

Genetic Provenance Integrity

Not assessed

A numeric provenance level is not inferred from the existence of a source or court record. It requires evidence of the relevant custody and processing controls.

Confidence: not assigned. Classification: GeneticSecurity.org analysis.

Proposed classification and its limits

Suggested GER: GER-1/2. Suggested GPR: GPR-5 for a durable cell line and sequence-derived information. Suggested GPI: GPI-3 if custody and transformation are documented, while consent can still fail.

These are proposed classifications from the supplied case dossier. Conditional scores describe an assumed exposure; they are not evidence that it occurred. A single numeric value is left unassigned when the asset or outcome is not sufficiently bounded.

What this case does not prove

It does not create a universal rule for all biospecimens, jurisdictions, contracts, or modern genetic privacy statutes.

Mitigations and lessons

  • Specific consent
  • Disclosure of investigator financial interests
  • Material-transfer agreements
  • Specimen ledgers
  • Use-purpose restrictions
  • Commercialization clauses
  • Participant communications
  • Governance for derived lines and sequence data

Primary sources

Secondary sources

No additional source listed. See the evidence notes for limitations.

Policy and standards

Genetic Security Policy and Standards

Review and correction history

Source edition: September 19, 2026. Imported case account; no substantive corrections recorded.

Correction policy and log

Cite this case

GS-CASE-014. Moore v. Regents: Who Controls a Commercial Cell Line?. GeneticSecurity.org. https://geneticsecurity.org/cases/014-moore-regents-cell-line-ownership/