The project’s core research objective is to develop a comprehensive understanding of the bioethical issues posed by patents, and how such patents are used, over ‘technologies’ related to how we treat, use or modify the human body. It aims to understand how we can – or should – better embed such bioethical considerations in patent decision-making in Europe. To achieve these aims, the project uses a novel 5 category taxonomy of patentable ‘technologies’ related to the body.
Patents allow rightsholders to stop others from using a patentable technology for the patent term (generally 20 years). This allows the rightsholders to control how that technology is provided, to whom, and on what terms. Where patents are granted over technologies related to how we treat, use or modify the body, this control poses considerable bioethical issues including implications for autonomy, bodily integrity and dignity.
The project interrogates to what extent such bioethical issues are considered, if at all, within European patent decision-making. It proposes that there is a self-reinforcing cycle where there is limited consideration of the potential broader bioethical implications posed by patents over technologies at grant stage; that there are also limited incentives for rightsholders to consider potential bioethical implications in how they license/use patents, and that patents, once granted, are often difficult to challenge if bioethical issues arise.
Ultimately, the project aims to reimagine European patent decision-making towards a person-centred approach which further embeds bioethical considerations in patent grant and licensing systems, where appropriate, for such technologies. The project develops a cross disciplinary institutional analysis to evaluate key legal, structural and cultural barriers leading to the marginalisation of bioethics in patent decision-making, and to formulate pathways to bring bioethics into patent decision-making for technologies related to the body with important conceptual and policy implications.
