The Invention and Plant Variety
This chapter seeks to define the terms ‘invention’ and ‘plant variety’ as used by European and UK legal officials particularly. To that end, the nature of the objects identified by the legislature and courts as inventions and plant varieties is considered, as well as the nature of the objects excluded from protection, whether with reference to the requirement for an invention or plant variety or on other statutory grounds. The chapter also considers the law governing patent and plant variety right entitlement, and its implications for legal conceptions of the invention and plant variety. In its conclusion, the legal understandings of inventions and plant varieties are presented as answers to the questions identified in Chapter 3 concerning the categories and essential properties of the subject matter in question, their method of individuation, and the relationship between and method of establishing the existence of each individual subject matter and its tokens.