Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
property rights protection is argued to stimulate economic growth
through encouraging innovation, although this effect is noticeably
weaker in countries with less open trading relationships and less
competitive local markets (Gould and Gruben, 1996). Patent
protection is a long-established method of stimulating innovation,
with forms of patenting recognizable by today's standards traceable
to the European craft guilds of the Middle Ages (Long, 1991).
Critics of the strong intellectual property protection afforded by a
robust patent system, however, suggest that more open access to
information leads to more competition in markets than patent
protection (Gould and Gruben, 1996). Another criticism of patenting
as a means of spurring innovation is that it may lead to companies
developing a monopoly (Gould and Gruben, 1996). Monopolies are
achieved with patenting when companies adopt an aggressive
patenting strategy, but then let their patents lie fallow (Gould and
Gruben, 1996). That is, they deliberately patent inventions that they
are not planning to use, the objective of this strategy being to prevent
competitors entering the market (Gould and Gruben, 1996).
The issues surrounding stem cell patents include debates challenging
whether or not a stem cell is patentable in and of itself as a novel or
new invention (Plomer et al., 2008), debates about the role that
patenting stem cells might have in shaping emerging research (Plomer
et al., Scott 2008; Murray, 2007; Herder, 2006) and debates about
whether or not it should be permissible to patent stem cells in the first
place (Herder, 2006). There are ongoing concerns about these issues in
relation to patenting in other biotechnologies too (Caulfield, 2003).
Disputes about stem cell patents in the US have mainly focused on
the applicability of patent law and the potential impact that patenting
will have on the development of the field (Plomer et al., 2008;
Murray, 2007; Herder, 2006). In the US it has been legal to patent
living organisms since the
Diamond
v.
Chakrabarty
case in 1980, in
which '… anything under the sun that is made by man' was declared
eligible for patent protection (Rai and Eisenberg, 2003). This case set
a new precedent for US patent law by extending the scope of claims
for materials that might be covered by patents (Rai and Eisenberg,
2003). In 1998, James A. Thompson applied for a US patent on his
discovery for isolating stem cells (Plomer et al., 2008; Murray, 2007;
