Biotechnological Patents for DNA sequences

November 10, 2008
Intellectual Property News and Interesting Facts

Biological patents have been granted around the world for unique drugs and also more recently a specific or unique sequence of DNA molecules. Biological patents for DNA sequences have however spurred much debate as many see the DNA sequences as natural and therefore not patentable. When however, a scientist invests a lot of time and resources into the discovering of a single DNA sequence to be used in cloning the scientist should get some form of protection and rights to the exclusive commercial exploitation and as such DNA sequences can also be included in biological patents. It would be difficult to find further funding for projects if DNA sequences were to be excluded from biological patents. The prerequisites that it for instance, should be for isolated DNA sequences and should fall in the larger category of chemical compounds provide some boundaries. In this instance vectors that contain nucleotide sequences and cells containing the specific vector or DNA also fall under the umbrella of biological patents. The prerequisite is that they should be new.