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Europe Bans Stem Cell Patenting

By Donald Zuhn, Kevin Noonan, Chris Singer, Sherri Oslick, and Jason Derry

By Kevin E. Noonan -- The Enlarged Board of the European Patent Office issued its decision denying a European patent on European Patent Application No. 96903521.1 (EP 0 770 125) to the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF), directed to human embryonic stem cells (hESCs). This decision is another example of European antipathy to biotechnology inventions, an attitude that in the past has had an extremely negative effect on the continent's competitiveness with the U.S. and Asian countries.The bases of the Board's decision are provisions of the European Patent Convention (EPC) prohibiting patents on inventions that would be contrary to public...

Full post as published by Patent Docs on December 09, 2008 (boomark / email).