Biological Inventions

Biological Patents

Smit & Van Wyk, as an intellectual property law firm, also assists clients with applications regarding biological patents and where required, litigation in the defence against allegations of infringement of rights.

Biological patents fall within the scope of patents, but are patents relevant to biology. The biological patents thus can take the form of a method to combine or obtain products to be combined.

This particular field of patent law is extremely complicated and by wording and specifying a patent in one way rather than another, many inventors have been successful in their applications which otherwise would have failed.

Biological patents are fairly new in the sense that the 70’s marked the first time that inventions of a biological technology nature were patented. Truly man made living matter can be patented and will fall within the scope of genetic engineering.

Even completed genomes have been patented over the next three decades. It hasn’t stopped there with even embryonic stem cells patents in 2001.

It however, remains a complicated and controversial field. As such the assistance of well qualified intellectual property attorneys, as offered by Smit & Van Wyk, should be sought.

Some parties feel that natural occurrences should not be patented and countries thus differ over the scope of biological patents and their value.

DNA related inventions have caused a stir or two along the line since the industry application may not be all that apparent.

There are even attempts to reverse patent grants. The stem cell patent was annulled in Germany as recently as 2006.

The European Patent Office has also declared that specific stem cells cannot be patented, more specifically, the cells obtained from human embryo destruction.

As wide as the controversy over such patents may be, biological patents play an important role in the development of modern medicine, agriculture and even the future survival of some species.

As such the refining of laws may follow to also cover this area of patent law more effectively.

Contact us should you wish to patent a biological invention.