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Planting A Standard: Proposing A Broad Reading Of In Re Elsner, Alicia L. Frostick
Planting A Standard: Proposing A Broad Reading Of In Re Elsner, Alicia L. Frostick
Michigan Law Review
This Note will show that one can read Elsner broadly to encompass both plant-type and widget-type inventions, and that applying Elsner to both plants and widgets is within the current statutory framework and case law. Such a reading would change the § 102 bar for inventions patentable under § 10i29 (hereinafter referred to as "widgets") as well as for plants. Part I of this Note argues that congressional sources require a flexible test-one that does not prejudice any objects under the Patent Act. Part II discusses the judicial interpretation of the Patent Act prior to Elsner in order to argue …
Protecting Biodiversity: Recognizing International Intellectual Property Rights In Plant Genetic Resources, Rebecca L. Margulies
Protecting Biodiversity: Recognizing International Intellectual Property Rights In Plant Genetic Resources, Rebecca L. Margulies
Michigan Journal of International Law
Accelerating deforestation in many tropical countries with the concomitant loss of plant species diversity incites increasing international concern. Until very recently, international environmental law tended to regard natural plant species as a "common heritage," a universal resource immune to private property claims. This common heritage approach to the problem of biodiversity loss has left the majority of plant species in a jurisprudential void, unprotected by property rights and subject to conflicting claims by countries with divergent goals. Unrelieved economic pressures force impoverished peoples in species-rich developing nations to resort to activities that ravage the forests, and the tragedy of biodiversity …