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Patenting Frankenstein's Monster: Exploring The Patentability Of Artificial Organ Systems And Methodologies, Jordana Goodman
Patenting Frankenstein's Monster: Exploring The Patentability Of Artificial Organ Systems And Methodologies, Jordana Goodman
Faculty Scholarship
The conception of Frankenstein’s monster bridges the ever-narrowing divide between man and machine. Long before Congress codified Section 33(a) of the America Invents Act (“AIA”), Mary Shelley’s vague description of the monster’s creation has left people wondering: what defines a human organism? Through an analysis of patent law and scientific progress in the development of artificial organ systems, this paper explores the boundaries of patentable subject matter in the United States and attempts to clarify Congress’s determination that “no patent may issue on a claim directed to or encompassing a human organism.” Though patent law should incentivize development of artificial …
Inventive Steps: The Crispr Patent Dispute And Scientific Progress, Jacob S. Sherkow
Inventive Steps: The Crispr Patent Dispute And Scientific Progress, Jacob S. Sherkow
Other Publications
Recent decisions by patent offices in the USA and Europe concerning the revolutionary gene-editing technology, CRISPR/Cas9, have shed light on the importance — and puzzles — of one particular area of patent law: “nonobviousness”, as it known in the USA, or, in Europe, the “inventive step”. Patent law does not always neatly align itself with the realities of biological research. But these competing decisions from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and the European Patent Office have put those differences on parade. Unpacking these standards for CRISPR tell us a lot about how advances in biology are actually made — …
Patent Protection For Crispr: An Elsi Review, Jacob S. Sherkow
Patent Protection For Crispr: An Elsi Review, Jacob S. Sherkow
Articles & Chapters
The revolutionary gene-editing technology, CRISPR, has raised numerous ethical, legal, and social concerns over its use. The technology is also subject to an increasing patent thicket that raises similar issues concerning patent licensing and research development. This essay reviews several of these challenges that have come to the fore since CRISPR’s development in 2012. In particular, the lucre and complications that have followed the CRISPR patent dispute may affect scientific collaboration among academic research institutions. Relatedly, universities’ adoption of “surrogate licensors” may also hinder downstream research. At the same time, research scientists and their institutions have also used CRISPR patents …