van Raden L
Deutsches Patentamt, München.
Dtsch Tierarztl Wochenschr. 1998 Mar;105(3):90-3.
Inventions related to living material are in principle patentable as well as inventions in the "classical" fields of technology as long as they are new, industrially applicable and involve an inventive step. A patent gives to its owner for a limited period of time the exclusive right to prevent others from using his patented new technical know-how. Starting point of patent protection in the field of genetic engineering is a genetic information or a genetically induced characteristic of an organism; there is no such thing as a "Patent on Life". As far as inventions relate to genetically modified organisms, patents give to their owners no additional property rights that might exclude the applicability e.g. of the laws on animal protection. Intellectual property like any other property is subject to the limits set up by law. It is neither scientifically correct nor does it help in finding a solution for the conflict within society to shift the--undoubtedly necessary--discussion about research and application in the field of genetic engineering to a discussion about patent law.
与生物材料相关的发明原则上可获得专利，“经典”技术领域的发明也是如此，只要它们是新颖的、具有工业实用性且涉及创造性步骤。专利在有限的时间内赋予其所有者阻止他人使用其专利新技术诀窍的专有权。基因工程领域专利保护的起点是生物体的遗传信息或遗传诱导特征；不存在“生命专利”这种东西。就与转基因生物相关的发明而言，专利并未赋予其所有者任何可能排除例如动物保护法适用性的额外财产权。与任何其他财产一样，知识产权受法律设定的限制。将关于基因工程领域研究和应用的——无疑是必要的——讨论转移到关于专利法的讨论上，既不符合科学事实，也无助于找到解决社会内部冲突的办法。
