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Environmental Risk in Biotech Patent Disputes: Which Role for Ordre Public before the European Patent Office?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Angelica Bonfanti
Angelica Bonfanti*
Affiliation:
University of Milan
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Abstract

Nowadays, biotechnologies are among the most interesting areas of science. Their development, fostered by intellectual property (IP) rights’ protection, leads to useful progress. Nonetheless, when, as with biotech inventions, environmental protection is at stake, this progress is not without controversy. The present contribution aims at examining the interferences between IP and environmental protection, as emerging in the framework of the European Patent Convention. To this extent, it will focus on the function and on the limits of the ordre public exception clause, with the purpose of suggesting a new role for science in disputes for revocation of biotech patents.

Type
Articles
Information
European Journal of Risk Regulation , Volume 3 , Issue 1 , March 2012 , pp. 47 - 56
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2012

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References

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11 Plant cells / Plant Genetic Systems, supra note 1, paras. 5–6.

12 Singer and Stauder, European Patent Convention, supra note 1, at p. 89.

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15 Implementing Regulations to the Convention on the Grant of European Patents of 5 October 1973, adopted by decision of the Administrative Council of the European Patent Organisation of 7 December 2006 (hereinafter “Implementing Regulations”). Implementing Regulations were last amended with Decision of the Administrative Council of 26 October 2010 amending Rule 36, entering into force on 1 January 2011. Their text is available at <http://www.epo.org> (last accessed on 16 January 2012). For a comment on Rule 28, see Visser and Forsyth, The Annotated European Patent Convention, supra note 1, at p. 401. Pursuant to the previous version of the Implementing Regulations, as last amended by Decision of the Administrative Council of the European Patent Organisation of 9 December 2004, Rule 28 was numbered Rule 23d. From now on, it will be indicated as “Rule 28”.

16 Implementing Regulations, Rule 28.d. See Beyleveld, Brownsword, and Llewelyn, “The Morality Clause of the Directive on the Legal Protection of Biotechnological Inventions”, supra note 10, pp. 167–169; Cristina Campiglio, “I brevetti biotecnologici nel diritto comunitario”, in 13 Diritto del commercio internazionale (1999), pp. 849 et. sqq., pp. 890–899; Kamstra, Döring, Scott-Ram, Sheard, and Wixon, Patents on Biotechnological Inventions: The E.C. Directive, supra note 3, at p. 41.

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21 Onco-mouse / Harvard, T 19/90, Decision of the Board of Appeal of the European Patent Office, 3 October 1990, para. 5. See Mills, supra note 10, pp. 55–59.

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23 Ibid., para. 6.3 and 10.1.

24 Ibid., para. 9.3.

25 Ibid., para. 13.2.9.

26 Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety to the Convention on Biological Diversity, adopted by the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity on 29 January 2000 and entered into force on 11 September 2003 (hereinafter, “Cartagena Protocol”), 39 International Legal Materials (2000), pp. 1027 et sqq.

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28 Directive 2009/41/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 6 May 2009 on the Contained Use of Genetically Modified Micro-Organisms, OJ 2009 L 125/75, para. 9 of the Preamble.

29 Directive 2001/18/EC, supra note 5, para. 23 of the Preamble. On Directive 2001/18/EC see Lee, Maria, EU Regulation of GMOs. Law and Decision Making for a New Technology (Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 2008), pp. 64 et sqq Google Scholar.

30 Regulation (EC) No 1946/2003 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 15 July 2003 on Transboundary Movements of Genetically Modified Organisms, in OJ 2003 L287/1, Art. 11.2.

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39 Primate Embryonic Stem Cells / Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation, T 1374/04, Decision of the Enlarged Board of Appeal, 25 November 2008, para. 25.

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41 Plant Cells / Plant Genetic Systems, supra note 1, para. 18.6.

42 Ibid., para. 18.7.

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50 Directive 98/44/EC, supra note 3, para. 55 of the Preamble.

51 Convention on Biological Diversity, signed at Rio de Janeiro on 5 June 1992, entered into force on 29 December 1993, 31 International Legal Materials (1992), pp. 818 et sqq. See Birnie, Boyle and Redgwell, International Law and the Environment, supra note 47, at p. 612.

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60 European Communities – Measures affecting the approval and marketing of biotech products, supra note 58, paras. 7.74–7.75.

61 Ibid., para. 7.74.

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