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ESC opinion on the legal protection of biotechnological inventions

The Economic and Social Committee (ESC) of the European Communities has published its opinion on the proposal for a Directive on the legal protection of biotechnological inventions. The proposed Directive aims to extend patent law to cover inventions in the field of biotechno...

The Economic and Social Committee (ESC) of the European Communities has published its opinion on the proposal for a Directive on the legal protection of biotechnological inventions. The proposed Directive aims to extend patent law to cover inventions in the field of biotechnology. Recent advances in this field cannot be addressed appropriately under existing European patent law which dates from around thirty years ago. The current proposal is the second from the Commission following the rejection of a previous proposal by the European Parliament due, in particular, to ethical questions in relation to the patentability of the human body and parts of the body. The ESC supports the Commission's proposal and urges the Council and Parliament to adopt the Directive as quickly as possible given the urgent need to harmonize patent law in the biotechnological sector. The Committee, however, calls for the wording of the proposal to be tightened in several areas in order to avoid ambiguity. In particular, it requests that the exclusion of human embryos from patentability be made explicit.

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