Patents for plants and genes under the European Patent Convention

Author(s):  
Noel Byrne

SynopsisThe cost of patenting an invention should be incurred only where the patent is likely to give the inventor an economic or a tactical advantage. Where it is practicable, secrecy may be preferable to patenting. If an advantage from patenting can be envisaged, then in Western Europe the inventor can apply either for a European patent under the European Patent Convention or for a national patent. The inventor in plant biotechnology faces a ban on patenting certain inventions, including plant varieties and essentially biological processes for the production of plants. But since this ban is interpreted strictly, there are opportunities for patenting what at first glance might seem not patentable. A patent application must give a written description of the invention that is complete enough for a skilled person to reproduce it. The inventor may be required to supplement the description in a patent specification for a biotechnological invention, by depositing a sample of relevant biological materials. A European patent is treated as a national patent in the country for which it was granted. Since a patent may be invalidated in enforcement proceedings, patenting may turn out to have been a costly mistake.

Author(s):  
Justine Pila ◽  
Paul L.C. Torremans

This chapter considers the procedure for obtaining a European patent directly from the European Patent Office (EPO) and indirectly from a competent patent office of a European Patent Convention (EPC) Contracting State or by international patent application under the Patent Cooperation Treaty 1970. It also considers the result of each procedure, and the focus within the European patent community on reducing the burden on patent applicants and improving patent quality with a view to minimizing the risk of a patent's revocation post-grant.


Author(s):  
Philip W. Grubb ◽  
Peter R. Thomsen ◽  
Tom Hoxie ◽  
Gordon Wright

This chapter discusses the procedure for filing a patent application at the European Patent Office (EPO). EPO procedure is governed by certain basic principles. No decisions may be made unless the parties have had the opportunity to comment and oral proceedings must be held if at least one party so requests. In the absence of specific provisions, the EPO shall take into account the principles of procedural law generally recognized in the contracting state. When the applicant is faced with a possible loss of rights, for example as result of an adverse decision by the EPO, he (almost) always has the possibility to recover his position. An adverse decision may also be appealed, and if the applicant has failed to act in time, options to recover include: extensions and grace periods, where provided; further processing under the European Patent Convention (EPC); restoration of rights; and requesting an appealable decision.


Author(s):  
Samuel Andrew Hardy

Abstract Rescue has long been a defense for the removal of cultural property. Since the explosion of iconoclasm in West Asia, North Africa, and West Africa, there has been a growing demand for cultural property in danger zones to be “rescued” by being purchased and given “asylum” in “safe zones” (typically, in the market countries of Western Europe and North America). This article reviews evidence from natural experiments with the “rescue” of looted antiquities and stolen artifacts from across Asia and Europe. Unsurprisingly, the evidence reaffirms that “rescue” incentivizes looting, smuggling, and corruption, as well as forgery, and the accompanying destruction of knowledge. More significantly, “rescue” facilitates the laundering of “ordinary” illicit assets and may contribute to revenue streams of criminal organizations and violent political organizations; it may even weaken international support for insecure democracies. Ultimately, “rescue” by purchase appears incoherent, counter-productive, and dangerous for the victimized communities that it purports to support.


Energies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (8) ◽  
pp. 2263
Author(s):  
Mahmood Ebadian ◽  
Shahab Sokhansanj ◽  
David Lee ◽  
Alyssa Klein ◽  
Lawrence Townley-Smith

In this study, an inter-continental agricultural pellet supply chain is modeled, and the production cost and price of agricultural pellets are estimated and compared against the recent cost and price of wood pellets in the global marketplace. The inter-continental supply chain is verified and validated using an integration of an interactive mapping application and a simulation platform. The integrated model is applied to a case study in which agricultural pellets are produced in six locations in Canada and shipped and discharged at the three major ports in Western Europe. The cost of agricultural pellets in the six locations is estimated to be in the range of EUR 92–95/tonne (CAD 138–142/tonne), which is comparable with the recent cost of wood pellets produced in small-scale pellet plants (EUR 99–109/tonne). The average agricultural pellet price shipped from the six plants to the three ports in Western Europe is estimated to be in a range of EUR 183–204 (CAD 274–305/tonne), 29–42% more expensive that the average recent price of wood pellets (EUR 143/tonne) at the same ports. There are several potential areas in the agricultural pellet supply chains that can reduce the pellet production and distribution costs in the mid and long terms, making them affordable supplement to the existing wood pellet markets. Potential economic activities generated by the production of pellets in farm communities can be significant. The generated annual revenue in the biomass logistics system in all six locations is estimated to be about CAD 21.80 million. In addition, the logistics equipment fleet needs 176 local operators with a potential annual income of CAD 2.18 million.


1983 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
pp. 381-403
Author(s):  
Louise Buenger Robbert

Seventy-three years ago pioneer American medievalist Dana Carlton Munro (1911: 504) delivered a paper in Philadelphia to the American Philosophical Society entitled “The Cost of Living in the Twelfth Century.” He threw down the gauntlet by concluding that in this paper an attempt has been made to set forth only a few of the facts, merely to indicate the nature and importance of the problem. Every one of the subjects here discussed is susceptible of elaboration, and needs to be worked out in detail for each country of Western Europe and each period in the twelfth century. The material is voluminous…. This field, as a whole, offers a good opportunity for many monographs, and such work is essential before we can understand the economic history of the century which was most important in the advance of western Europe.This article takes up this challenge with new material on the cost of living in Italy in the twelfth century.


Author(s):  
Mitja Kovac ◽  
Salvini Datta ◽  
Rok Spruk

<p>Our data on the legal status of patent applications is from European Patent Office's (EPO) PATSTAT database which contains bibliographic and legal status firm-level patent data from leading industrialized and developing countries for the period 1995-2015. Sixteen different forms of legal statues are broadly classified and systematized into four broad categories. The first category entails the patent applications sent to EPO. This category is used to code firm-level observations based on whether the patent application has been submitted to EPO. The second category comprises the pooled firm-level observations for which the patent application has been approved and official validated. This category comprises the firms for which a valid patent has been approved in a given year. The third category comprises the firms whose patent application has been rejected by EPO on various ground which exceed the scope of this paper. And fourth, the remaining forms of legal status were coded into miscellaneous category which amounts to a minor fraction of the whole set of applications and which are omitted from the empirical analysis.</p>


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