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| home > epc > spring 2003 > tailoring patent laws to meet the real needs of pharmaceutical and biotechnology research |
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European Pharmaceutical Contractor
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It is trite to speak of the importance of intellectual property, and in particular patents, to the pharmaceutical and biotechnology sectors. But what we are now seeing is that the system which has served these sectors so well for so long is in some cases providing too little, and in others perhaps too much protection, given the needs of the industry today.
The patent system is tailored to protecting 'inventions'. Traditional examples within these sectors have been new molecules or new processes for their manufacture. Nearly 20 years ago the European Patent Office recognised that new medicinal uses for a known pharmaceutical could themselves also form the proper subject matter for a patent.
The US had never experienced any problems over protecting these with patents for methods of treatment. However the concept of 'invention' is often rather less easily applied to such subject matter. Thus, by the traditional standards of patent law, it may be 'obvious' from a patent point of view to try a drug known to be effective in one form of cancer for other forms of cancer, thereby rendering the discovery that it is truly efficacious in another form of cancer 'obvious' or 'lacking in inventive step' and hence, unpatentable.
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