EU Moves To Agreement On Biotech Patents

A complex debate in the European Parliament last week on a revisedEuropean Commission directive has so far moved towards broader acceptance of biotechnology by Members of the European Parliament, but the string of 111 amendments restricting research activity underlines the continuing ethical concern in Europe that sank the original directive two years ago (see also Marketletters July 14, 1997 and March 20, 1995).

The Parliament, on a first reading of the new draft, agreed that novel inventions based on "inventive activity" and capable of industrial application will be patentable "even if they concern a product consisting of or containing biological material." MEPs also agreed that biological material isolated from its environment or processed "by means of a technical process" may be the subject of an invention, even "if it already occurred in nature."

"Inventions" vs "Discoveries" The background to this legal subtlety is that the Commission's new draft directive draws a distinction between "inventions" and "discoveries." The idea is that a discovery would not be patentable whereas an invention, defined as a technical process with an industrial application, could be patented on the understanding that this would not cover "an element of the human body in its natural environment."