EU Sues Member Nations To Force Change In Patent Laws

ipandithurts writes "The European Union has brought member nations to court to force them to pass laws modifying their current patent laws to match the laws required by the EU. These requirements essentially centers around biotechnology patent law.After a 10-year debate, the EU adopted what it called "strict ethical rules" for patenting biotech inventions in 1998 and gave member states until July 30, 2000, to transpose them into national law. Germany, Austria, Belgium, France, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Sweden still have not done so, prompting the European Commission to refer them to the European Court of Justice. Their failure to implement the EU directive "has created trade barriers and hampered the internal market," it said. "Non-implementation ... is putting the European biotechnology sector at a serious disadvantage." Seeking to allay public concerns about patenting processes using human genes or DNA molecules, the rules ban patents for cloning human beings or modifying their genetic identity, as well as the use of human embryos for industrial purposes. The Commission said last year that it expects that the global biotechnology market, not counting agriculture, could amount to more than euro2 trillion ($2.26 trillion) by 2010."

Comments

Boy, I want more than that article.

[Elwood P Dowd]

They don't say if the new EU style patents allow patenting/copyrighting/whatever of raw discovered genetic data. The most obvious bad patent, that we've got here in the states, is patenting the use of a particular genetic sequence (in the human genome!) as a method of finding another copy of that sequence.

Sooo low.

Re:Jokes on you

[Alethes]

I'm sure you'll get modded as flamebait, but the fact remains that these "nations" are now unable to make laws as they see fit because they gave up their sovereignty.

actually forced through TRIPS treaty

[jmason]

Should be pointed out that this was a condition of the WTO's TRIPS treaty of 1995:

Here the World Trade Organization (WTO) lent the biotech industry a shoulder to cry on by allowing the major players to formulate the Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights Agreement (TRIPS) which came into force in 1995. TRIPS aims to force all countries to take on board a menu of biotech patents and 'harmonize' their national patenting regimes accordingly - the aim is to make the world follow the US example.

This book review at Nature says: 'Central to this analysis is the account of the negotiation of TRIPS, whereby the campaign for globalized intellectual-property standards was shifted to the international trade agenda. Developing countries were persuaded to sign up to TRIPS in exchange for the liberalization of world trade markets. The subsequent failure of these markets to materialize (witness US steel tariffs and farm subsidies in the United States and Europe) also goes some way to explaining the growing disenchantment with TRIPS.'

See also why Biotech patents are patently absurd. As members of the WTO, and signatories to TRIPS, these countries really don't have a choice; they'd be in breach of the TRIPS treaty if they do not ratify these laws.