Moore v. Regents of the University of California was one of the first cases internationally that dealt with the patenting of human genetic material. The case is closely related to the development of medicine and of biotechnology applied to medicine. These developments require the utilization of human body parts, both for experiments and for transplant, and present certain major medico-legal problems. However, the case did not produce conclusive decisions on the various key legal issues that it raised involved in biomedical research and the patenting of human genetic material. This article re-examines the case from an Indian and an international perspective.