PATENTS OF LIFE IN

BIOTECHNOLOGY
• Biotechnology could be a real boost to
poverty-ridden countries if they could afford
the technology.
 What is Patents?

• Patents are government grants that provide an

inventor with the exclusive right to use, sell
and manufacture an invention for a set period
of time.
• One of the requirement of patent is to prove
that the product has never been made before,
involves a nonobvious inventive step, and
serves some functional purpose.
History of Patents
• Inventors have been filing applications for
biotechnological patents for over a hundred
years.
• On 29 July 1873, microbiologist Louis Pasteur
patented his improved yeast- making method
at the French Patent Office.
• In recent years, researchers have succeeded in
better understanding the functioning of the
human body and its immune system.
• Biotechnology has already provided life-saving
medicines such as human insulin,
erythroprotein, etc., and it appears to promise
cures for conditions currently regarded as
untreatable.
• In agriculture, biotechnology is used to modify
the physiology of plants with a view to
introducing specific desirable features, such as
resistance to disease and herbicides, or
achieving higher yields.
• Patents are often scientific and technical
innovations, such as processes for processing
information more quickly. Ideas that are useful
and new (i.e., no one has done it before) are
made patented.
Components of a Patent
 Components of a Patent

• A patent has three following parts GRANT,

SPECIFICATION OF THE IDEA, and the CLAIMS.
• The grant is filed at the patent office it is not
published. It is a signed document which is
actually the agreement that permits the
patent right to the inventor.
 Components of a Patent
• The specification of the idea includes the
methods of invention. It is published as a
single document and made public with a
minimum charge from the patent office.
• The claim defines the scope of invention to be
protected by the patent so that the others
may not use it.
Patentable Inventions
 1. Methods

• It is a new and non-obvious method of using a

known compound. Examples are the biological
processes which yield useful proteins,
enzymes, vaccines, biochemical, secondary
metabolites, etc.
 2. Composition

• Compositional formula of several beneficial

products such as pharmaceuticals and
reagents.
 3. Products
• The products may be any new chemicals such
as pesticides, additives, herbicides,
insecticides, fungicides, genes including
modified genes, expression vectors, probes,
modified proteins or the GMOs.
 4. New Uses
• New uses for a previously known compound.
Applications which are completely new such
as exploitation of microbes for the production
of antibiotics and other drugs, etc.
 5. New Methods of Treatment or
Diagnosis
• New treatment or diagnosis methods
applicable for instruments, industrial products
such as dyes, flavor chemicals, plants, animals,
etc.
 ADVANTAGES AND
DISADVANTAGES OF PATENT
SYSTEM
 Advantages of Patent System
1. Patenting allows select research groups to take
control of and exploit organisms and genetic
material as private property that can be licensed
or sold to producers, breeders, scientist or
doctors at a cost set by the research group.
2. Once the administration of patent has been
obtained, it becomes very easy to maintain and
follow it.
3. Misuse of the things which have been covered
under the patent can be avoided.
 Disadvantages of Patent System

1. Any litigation related to patented product or

process is highly expensive.
2. An argument against patents is that the process
is not only complex, but also requires public
disclosure.