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Beyond Recombinant Technology: Synthetic Biology And Patentable Subject Matter, Luigi Palombi
Beyond Recombinant Technology: Synthetic Biology And Patentable Subject Matter, Luigi Palombi
Luigi Palombi
Even though it is not yet clear as a matter of law that isolated biological materials are indeed patentable subject matter, not only have patents over such materials continued to be granted throughout the world, but the European Parliament passed the Biotechnology Directive in 1998 in an attempt to put an end to the debate. The problem is that TRIPS requires that patents be granted for 'inventions' only and there is a real question over whether isolated biological materials or those made by the use of synthetic biology are indeed inventions within the meaning of the word in TRIPS. But …
Improving Access To Medicines Doesn't Have To Mean More Patents, Luigi Palombi
Improving Access To Medicines Doesn't Have To Mean More Patents, Luigi Palombi
Luigi Palombi
Access to medicines presupposes that there are medicines to access, but the development of medicines, especially those needed to treat diseases that inflict the poor and the disadvantaged, are especially difficult to access because of the pharmaceutical industry’s paradigm of medicines being inextricably linked to patents; meaning, without patents there is no incentive to undertake the necessary R&D to develop new medicines. This paper argues that this is a lie; told by pharmaceutical executives and spread by well meaning scientists. Uncontested by policymakers in the 1960’s it has become a truth that threatens scientific progress, the development of appropriate medicines …