Patenting Biotechnological Inventions

When I read law as a subject , my concentration is more on how and where the problems lie.
In the next many paragraphs I am just going to talk about the application of the Patent System with respect to Biotechnological Inventions.

Patent is a state of grant. The patent system, with its roots in ancient times , has emerged as a reward to grants an investor exclusive rights over his intellectual creative manifestation. This patent regime envisions three standard criteria- novelty , utility and non-obviousness for an invention to come within the patent frame.
Thus, an inventions must be new and useful. Also it must fulfil the statutory requirement of inventive step..which means it should not exist or known to the general public.

The application of these three standards in case of Biotechnological inventions creates certain problems mainly because the inventions in this case mainly deal with the living matter. So the application of conditions like novelty and inventive step pose serious problems.

When it comes to biotechnological inventions , the raw materials are mainly living organisms like the plants or animals, agriculture or horticulture etc. which are already in the public domain. They are developed adopting artificial procedures in which the natural growth is effected by chemical additions such as fertilisers and special physical conditions such as adulteration of light , temperature and humidity.

Now the basic problem here is that biotechnological inventions are not new in itself. Biotechnology itself is based on pre– existing biological matter provided by nature . The nature and the extent of human intervention and the degree of value added by such intervention is often resorted to determine whether it is an invention or a discovery.

One of the greatest challenges facing patent regime has been the boundary between human invention and natural products improved by advanced biotechnology.