§ Mr. FatchettTo ask the President of the Board of Trade if he will make a statement on his Department's policy towards the European Commission's proposal to ban the patenting of human genes.
§ Mr. McLoughlin[holding answer 2 December 1993]: My Department supports the proposal contained in the European Commission's draft Directive on the Legal Protection of Biotechnological Inventions that the human body and parts of the body should not be patentable. Whilst this would exclude genes in the body from patentability, we do accept that it may be appropriate for sequences of nucleotides of specific industrial application, which may derive from human genes, to be patentable provided the normal criteria of novelty and inventive step are met.