Myles W. Jackson
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- September 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780262028660
- eISBN:
- 9780262327190
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- The MIT Press
- DOI:
- 10.7551/mitpress/9780262028660.003.0003
- Subject:
- History, History of Science, Technology, and Medicine
This chapter traces the CCR5 gene’s intellectual property lineage. It discusses how genes became patentable in the United States by offering a history of patent law, particularly cases that have been ...
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This chapter traces the CCR5 gene’s intellectual property lineage. It discusses how genes became patentable in the United States by offering a history of patent law, particularly cases that have been cited as precedents for gene patenting. One of those cases, known as the “adrenalin patent”, was upheld by Judge Learned Hand in 1911 with a view to assist US pharmaceutical companies against their German rivals. Many argue that genes are not patent eligible due to the so-called product-of-nature doctrine. It turns out that the history of patenting products of nature is convoluted, and those who wish to unearth a clear trajectory or stance will be disappointed.Less
This chapter traces the CCR5 gene’s intellectual property lineage. It discusses how genes became patentable in the United States by offering a history of patent law, particularly cases that have been cited as precedents for gene patenting. One of those cases, known as the “adrenalin patent”, was upheld by Judge Learned Hand in 1911 with a view to assist US pharmaceutical companies against their German rivals. Many argue that genes are not patent eligible due to the so-called product-of-nature doctrine. It turns out that the history of patenting products of nature is convoluted, and those who wish to unearth a clear trajectory or stance will be disappointed.
Alain Pottage and Brad Sherman
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- April 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780199595631
- eISBN:
- 9780191807282
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780199595631.001.0001
- Subject:
- Law, Intellectual Property, IT, and Media Law
Taking the invention as its object of study, this book develops a new perspective on the making of modern patent law. Focusing on the figures that make inventions material, and on how to overcome the ...
More
Taking the invention as its object of study, this book develops a new perspective on the making of modern patent law. Focusing on the figures that make inventions material, and on how to overcome the intangibility of ideas, it makes explicit a dimension of patent law that is not commonly found in traditional commentaries, treatises, and cases. The story is told from the perspective of the material media in which the intangible form of the invention is made visible; namely, models, texts, drawings, and biological specimens. This brings to light some essential formative moments in the history of patent law. The book describes the central role that scale models played in the making of nineteenth-century patent jurisprudence, the largely mythical character of the nineteenth-century theory that patents texts should function as a means of disclosing inventions, and the profound conceptual changes that emerged from debates as to how to represent and disclose the first biological inventions. It also reveals the basic conceptual architecture of modern patent law. The story of how inventions were represented is also the story of the formation of the modern concept of invention, or of the historical processes that shaped the terms in which patent lawyers still apprehend the intangible form of the invention. Although the analysis focuses on the history of patent law in the United States, it develops themes that illuminate the evolution of patent regimes in Europe.Less
Taking the invention as its object of study, this book develops a new perspective on the making of modern patent law. Focusing on the figures that make inventions material, and on how to overcome the intangibility of ideas, it makes explicit a dimension of patent law that is not commonly found in traditional commentaries, treatises, and cases. The story is told from the perspective of the material media in which the intangible form of the invention is made visible; namely, models, texts, drawings, and biological specimens. This brings to light some essential formative moments in the history of patent law. The book describes the central role that scale models played in the making of nineteenth-century patent jurisprudence, the largely mythical character of the nineteenth-century theory that patents texts should function as a means of disclosing inventions, and the profound conceptual changes that emerged from debates as to how to represent and disclose the first biological inventions. It also reveals the basic conceptual architecture of modern patent law. The story of how inventions were represented is also the story of the formation of the modern concept of invention, or of the historical processes that shaped the terms in which patent lawyers still apprehend the intangible form of the invention. Although the analysis focuses on the history of patent law in the United States, it develops themes that illuminate the evolution of patent regimes in Europe.
