Australia: raising the bar on patents; Generic drugmakers welcome Copyright bill

Australia’s Senate Legal and Constitutional Committee is being urged to abandon patentable subject matter amendments in favor of the Intellectual Property Laws Amendments by the Institute of Patent and Trade Mark Attorneys of Australia (IPTA) and the trade group AusBiotech.

In a press conference in Canberra this week, and in submissions to the Committee, AusBiotech and IPTA made the point that pursuing the Patent Amendment (Human Genes & Biological Materials) Bill 2010 will be detrimental to a country endeavoring to promote its intellectual talent, retain its best and brightest, and establish its footprint as an important center for biotechnology development.

Legislation to outlaw the patenting of human genes was introduced into the federal parliament by NSW Liberal senator Bill Heffernan last November. It would expressly exclude from patentability "biological materials which are identical or substantially identical to such materials as they exist in nature, however made." The legislation would cover DNA, RNA, proteins, cells and fluids.