Ulrich Storz

SpringerBriefs in Biotech Patents presents timely reports on intellectual properties (IP) issues and patent aspects in the field of biotechnology. This volume focus on particular aspects of the US patent law, which can have tremendous differences compared to the European law. This includes questions of biopatent prosecution, novelty, inventive step, written disclosure and sufficiency of enablement as well as questions of law enforcement of biotech patents.

SpringerBriefs in Biotech Patents presents timely reports on intellectual properties (IP) issues and patent aspects in the field of biotechnology. In this volume the limits of patentability are addressed, a question that is often raised when it comes to biotechnological inventions: The first section addresses current issues in the patentability of plants produced by essentially biological processes including the controversy between farmer’s privilege and patent exhaustion with respect to seeds in the US. The second section examines the patentability of human embryonic stem cells in Europe and the US, also considering alternative technologies with respect to their practicability and patentability. The third section focuses on the patentability of genes and nucleic acids, especially the issue of patenting of encoding genes and nucleic acids.

SpringerBriefs in Biotech Patents present timely reports of intellectual properties (IP) issues and patent aspects in the field of biotechnology. This new volume in the series focuses on the particular IP issues of therapeutics, vaccines and molecular diagnostics. The first chapter concentrates on basics principles for protecting antibody compounds. Additional ways to create follow-up protection for antibody therapeutics are also discussed. The second chapter gives an overview of the patent landscape in molecular diagnostics, and discusses issues of patentability with respect to the different technologies and compounds used therein. The third chapter gives a broad overview of areas of law that are particularly relevant to the patenting of peptide vaccines and therapeutic peptides as products and in compositions. The scope of patentable subject matter is discussed, as it has been the focus of much wrangling and debate in the courts.

Patents protecting biotechnological invention are becoming ever more important. Because biotechnology has many differences with respect to other technologies, lessons learned in other fields of technology cannot simply be transferred to adopt a suitable strategy for dealing with biotechnology inventions. In this volume, general aspects of biopatent law will be discussed. This involves questions of patentability, including ethical issues and issues of technicality, as well as questions of patent exhaustion in cases were reproducible subject matter, like cells or seeds, is protected. Moreover, active and passive patent strategies are addressed. Further, insight will be given into patent lifetime management and additional protective measures, like supplementary protection certificates and data exclusivity. Here, strategies are discussed how market exclusivity can be extended as long as possible, which is particularly important for biopharmaceutical drugs, which create high R&D costs.