Ananda Chakraborty received the first U.S. patent for a GM entity. The entity was

The correct answer is Pseudomonas engineered to degrade petroleum.

Ananda Mohan Chakrabarty (often spelled Chakraborty) was a prominent Indian-American microbiologist who made a landmark breakthrough in genetic engineering and biotechnology. In 1971, while working at the General Electric Company, he successfully developed a genetically modified bacterium in the laboratory by combining plasmids from different strains of Pseudomonas bacteria. This newly engineered strain, referred to as Pseudomonas putida (also known as the "superbug"), was capable of breaking down hydrocarbons present in crude oil much faster than any single natural strain could. This made it a highly promising tool for cleaning up oil spills.

Chakrabarty filed a patent application for the bacterium, but the patent examiner rejected it on the grounds that living microorganisms are "products of nature" and are not patentable subject matter under United States patent law. Chakrabarty appealed the decision, leading to the historic United States Supreme Court case Diamond v. Chakrabarty in 1980. The Supreme Court ruled in a 5–4 decision that a live, human-made microorganism is patentable subject matter under 35 U.S.C. § 101, stating that the law does not distinguish between living and inanimate things but rather between products of nature and human-made inventions. Consequently, he was granted U.S. Patent 4,259,444, which became the first patent ever issued for a genetically modified living organism.