Patenting in Biotechnology

Patenting of Biological Material and Biotechnology

One of the major challenges faced by developing countries due to globalization and TRIPS regulations is understanding of intellectual property rights (IPR) laws of different countries in context of recent innovations in biotechnology and bioinformatics. While biotechnology involves application of technology on biological organisms, viz., microorganisms, plant and animals and biological material...

Patenting life: biotechnology, intellectual property, and environmental ethics.

Patterns of Public-Sector and Private-Sector Patenting in Agricultural Biotechnology

Over the past two or more decades, the structure of agricultural input industries has changed very rapidly. Private-sector investment in agricultural and food research and development (R&D) has grown dramatically, while public-sector investment has remained relatively constant. Private-sector plant breeding has been the fastest growing segment of the private research portfolio. Mergers, acquisi...

Patentable subject matter, TRIPS and the European Biotechnology Directive: Australia and patenting human genes.

This paper maintains that the word ‘inventions’ in art 27.1 of the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights 19941 (‘TRIPS’) imposes an obligation on member countries to ensure that the subject matter of a patent application be scrutinised and not presumed. Article 27.1 of TRIPS provides that ‘[p]atents shall be available for any inventions, whether products or processe...

Financial patenting in Europe

We take a first look at financial patents at the European Patent Office (EPO). As is the case at the United States Patent and Trademark Office, the number of financial patents in Europe has increased significantly in parallel with significant changes in payment and financial systems. Scholars have argued that financial patents, like other business methods patents, have low value and are owned f...