Europe's construction of a patent system for biotechnological inventions:: An assessment of industry views

Abstract Ever since it became obvious that biotechnology will become one of the core technologies in the new millenium, the European biotechnology industry and its legal framework have been compared with the system in the US. In particular, the patent system as an incentive system for research and development is frequently a matter of debate. Adopting a system that was developed a long time ago for inventions of the mechanical era to new kinds of inventions, however, poses many difficulties with respect to the scope of protection and the definition of what is patentable. Even though the debate is already going on for some time, the situation is still quite unclear. Based on the empirical data from an industry survey, this article describes the situation of patent law for biotechnological inventions in Europe, evaluates the harmonisation issue in Europe, compares it with regulations in the US and comes up with suggestions for improvements of the current legal European framework.