patent boundaries: global challenges in emerging fields of …ipbio.org/pdfs/plomerp.pdf · 2011....
TRANSCRIPT
Patent Boundaries:
Global Challenges in Emerging Fields of
Science
Aurora Plomer, BA, MA, LLB, PhD
Professor of Law and Bioethics
Director of S.I.B.L.E
University of Sheffield a.
plomer@ sheffield.ac.uk
The Patent Paradox (I)
The current patent system “doesn‟t seem to be
delivering quite the effect on innovation and
competition it was supposed to.”
Alison Brimelow, WiPO Global Symposium, September 2009 (IPWatch, September
2009)
The „dark‟ cycle
Pendency breeds legal uncertainty
Rewards slowness and poor quality patents
Incentivizes gaming
Innovation deterred
Solutions
Increase resources and personnel
Increase cooperation and work-sharing practices
between patent offices
Substantive Harmonization
The Patent Paradox (revisited)
"All patent owners are obliged, in return for patent protection, to publicly disclose information on their
invention in order to enrich the total body of technical knowledge in the world. Such an ever-increasing body of public knowledge promotes further creativity and innovation in others. In this way, patents provide not
only protection for the owner but valuable information and inspiration for future generations of researchers
and inventors.”
WIPO website
The Knowledge Transfer Problem
The existence of foundational patents on hESCs
granted by the UKIPO to the US Cie. Geron in
2005 was unknown to leading UK scientists in the
field until 2008.
UK National Stem Cell Network, Inaugural Conference, Edinburgh (2008)
Details of the claims were not readily accessible
through public databases
Nor could they be found on the Cie‟s own website at
the time.
PATENT DATA INFRASTRUCTURE
Technical limitations on search facilities
- Titles, Abstracts, Claims
Accuracy/Time-lag - can be several years
- UKIPO Technology Report on Genomic Medicine
(April 2008)
Alignment of cataloguing with the science
- IPC & ECLA codes
Towards Convergence on Prior Art?
Key lessons
Increase cooperation and work-sharing practices between
patent offices
Could assist with identification of prior art
BUT presupposes
- a high degree of substantive standardization of criteria of
novelty/inventive-step/non-obviousness
AND in emerging fields of science
- there is no clear alignment of scientific and legal criteria
AND
- knowledge transfer is hampered by suboptimal patent
information infrastructures.
Patent Boundaries and Patent Failure
Complexity of Science
Lack of Alignment between Scientific and Legal criteria
Suboptimal Patent Information Infrastructures
REGULATORY FAULTLINES
Institutions
Fragmented Global governance of IP - multiple layers of legal and quasi-legal
controls over patents
Overlapping roles of patent offices and courts
Absence of steering from the legislature.
Under-resourcing of patent offices
Sub-optimal patent information infrastructures
Uneven quality of scrutiny
Rules
Indeterminate rules on scope and validity of patents.
Divergent and inconsistent approaches by different patent offices/courts
Knock-on effects
Fuzzy patent boundaries – risk of infringement
Potential loss of market value/asset value
and associated loss of investment/liquidity for research
Blocking much more widespread as patenting one gene/cell culture
suppresses researching systems involving this gene/cell culture
No line of sight on exposures to failure
Patent system and valuations prone to catastrophic system failure
A.Plomer & P. Taylor, 'Patently Complex: Emerging Questions on Patents on Biotechnological Inventions' Complexity and Policy:
the Global Governance of New Health Technologies', ESRC Research Seminar Series, LSE, 26th November 2008.
e
st
i
o
n
s
/
p
o
in
ts
f
o
r
r
e
f
o
r
m
THANK YOU