Murphy Amanda, Stramiello Michael, Lewis Stacy, Irving Tom
Finnegan, Henderson, Farabow, Garrett & Dunner, LLP, Washington, D.C. 20001-4413.
Cold Spring Harb Perspect Med. 2015 Mar 27;5(8):a020776. doi: 10.1101/cshperspect.a020776.
This review introduces patents and trade secrets, the two mechanisms that U.S. law provides inventors to protect their inventions. These mechanisms are mutually exclusive: One demands disclosure and the other calls for concealment. Many biotechnology innovators opt for patents, which grant legal, time-limited monopolies to eligible inventions.To obtain a patent in the United States, an invention must be useful to the public and made or altered by the hand of man. It must then clear the hurdles of novelty and nonobviousness. If an invention can do that, obtaining a patent becomes a matter of form: Who qualifies as an inventor? Does the application demonstrate possession, stake a clear claim to the protection sought, and enable "ordinary" colleagues to replicate it? Has the inventor purposely withheld anything? This review addresses each of these hurdles as they apply to biotech inventions.
本综述介绍了专利和商业秘密，这是美国法律为发明家提供的用以保护其发明的两种机制。这些机制相互排斥：一种要求公开，另一种则要求保密。许多生物技术创新者选择专利，专利会授予符合条件的发明合法的、有时间限制的垄断权。要在美国获得专利，一项发明必须对公众有用，并且是由人类制造或改变的。然后它必须跨越新颖性和非显而易见性的障碍。如果一项发明能够做到这一点，获得专利就只是形式问题了：谁有资格成为发明人？申请是否表明拥有该发明、明确主张所寻求的保护范围，并且使“普通”同行能够复制它？发明人是否故意隐瞒了什么？本综述将探讨这些障碍在生物技术发明中的应用情况。
