Polio Vaccine

Jonas Salk, USA, no patent, 1955. Could you patent the sun?

Overview

Jonas Salk's inactivated polio vaccine was tested on well over a million American children in 1954, one of the largest medical trials ever, and declared safe and effective on 12 April 1955. Asked by Edward R. Murrow who owned the patent, Salk replied that there was no patent and asked, could you patent the sun? Lawyers for the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis had in fact concluded the vaccine was unlikely to be patentable. Either way, it was produced widely, and polio cases in the US collapsed within a few years.