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EUROPEAN PATENTS


“JUDGING BY THE TWO MILLION PEOPLE WHO HAVE SIGNED AVAAZ’S PETITION, ISSUES SUCH AS THE PATENTING OF FRUIT AND VEGETABLES ARE CLEARLY CONTENTIOUS.”


marketing concentration, hamper competition, and serve to promote unjust monopoly rights. Such patents have nothing to do with traditional patent law, or with giving fair rewards and incentives for innovation and inventions.” While this may be a matter for competition, rather than intellectual property, law, Cohen says: “Te interaction between patent law and competition law is a complex and highly contentious issue. By its very nature a patent is designed to reward innovation and award the innovator a right to prevent third parties from using that technology for a limited period of time.”


Intellectual Property… It’s in our DNA


Judging by the two million people who have signed Avaaz’s petition, issues such as the patenting of fruit and vegetables are clearly contentious. One of the reasons for people to sign the petition is that only five companies own 95% of the vegetable seeds market in the EU. Tat statistic, from a European Commission report published in 2013, causes some concern for the people who have signed the petition. Te Enlarged Board is not tasked with considering emotional arguments about monopolies, but will instead concentrate on striking a balance between what can and cannot be patented.


Te assembly line of patents on plants and animals continues unabated and looks set to increase further in 2015. But for Cohen, the patents in the Tomatoes II and Broccoli II cases are unlikely to be granted. She says: “Te justifications for refusing the patents are practicability, public policy and morality. From the perspective of the proprietor of the patent, it may be impractical to police whether or not your patent has been infringed. For these reasons it is important that the exclusion is respected.” Despite the uncertainty over the approach


the Enlarged Board will take, it seems certain that future patent applications covering plants and animals will attract similar levels of controversy. ■


Powell Gilbert is a London-based law firm focusing on litigation and helping the world’s leading life sciences companies defend their intellectual property all around the globe.


From biotech to pharma, few law firms know life sciences better than we do… and we have the PhDs to prove it.


www.powellgilbert.com www.lifesciencesipreview.com Life Sciences Intellectual Property Review Volume 2, Issue 2 25


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