EPO rulings clarify biotech protection
01 December 2008
Managing Intellectual Property
James Nurton, London
Two decisions from the European Patent Office last month have shed some light on the patentability of stem cells and genes. But the rulings have left open key questions over the protection granted to biotech inventions in Europe.
In a landmark decision on November 25, the Enlarged Board of Appeal of the EPO confirmed that the Office will not grant patents on human stem cells that involve the destruction of a human embryo. The decision came in a ruling on an application for "primate embryonic stem cells" made by the Wisconsin Alumni Research Federation (WARF) in 1995.
The Enlarged Board said that Rule 28(c) of the European Patent Convention bars the patenting of claims for products that "could be prepared exclusively by a method which necessarily involved the destruction of the human embryos from which the said products are derived". It added that this bar remained "even...
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