Agovic, Amina --- "Stem Cell Patents: Looking for Serenity" [2012] ELECD 139; in Rimmer, Matthew; McLennan, Alison (eds), "Intellectual Property and Emerging Technologies" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2012)

Book Title: Intellectual Property and Emerging Technologies

Editor(s): Rimmer, Matthew; McLennan, Alison

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781849802468

Section: Chapter 9

Section Title: Stem Cell Patents: Looking for Serenity

Author(s): Agovic, Amina

Number of pages: 27

Extract:

9. Stem cell patents: looking for serenity
Amina Agovic

Human embryonic stem cell research is the subject of great hope and
controversy. International and regional policies on stem cell research are
complex and lack harmonisation. Recently, however, the policy battles in
respect of innovation in stem cell research have begun to shift from
controversies within research to skirmishes over patent law and related
intellectual property rights.
Human embryonic stem cells are generally harvested from the inner cell
mass of a blastocyst-stage embryo and this necessitates that an embryo is
destroyed. This inevitable destruction of the human embryo is a major
cause of controversy in relation to not only the research itself, but also the
patenting of research results. Moreover, this embryo destruction was a
primary cause for the European Patent Office (EPO) to reject patent
applications such as the Edinburgh (T1079/03), the Wisconsin Alumni
Research Foundation (WARF) (T1374/04) and the CIT (T522/04).
In the United States, ever since the isolation of the first human embry-
onic stem cell line in 1998, many scientists have increasingly complained
about the hindering effects of the WARF stem cell patents on possibly
life-saving research involving human embryonic stem cells. Now, the latest
ruling on the American WARF patent has the potential to alter the
patentability criteria in life sciences.
Both the European and the American WARF cases illustrate the ethical
conundrums surrounding patenting human embryonic stem cells. As a
result, ethical tensions surrounding patentability of human embryonic
stem cells ...