§ Dr. Lynne JonesTo ask the President of the Board of Trade what criteria are being adopted by the Patent Office to determine whether there is a significant inventive step in establishing the structure and function of any given gene; and what will be the arrangements for informing the research community that patent applications in this area will no longer be considered.
109W
§ Mr. McLoughlinThe Patents Act 1977 requires the Patent Office to assess whether an invention is obvious to a skilled person or involves an inventive step. The Patent Office must make a judgment based on all the information submitted by the applicant for a patent and what is known about a particular area of technology. In making any judgment in a case relating to a particular gene the degree of difficulty in locating it would be a factor to be taken into account in assessing whether isolation of a gene amounted to an invention.
Until such time as the existing law is modified or appropriate case law has been established by the courts it would be wrong for the Patent Office to circumscribe the ability of companies or individuals to apply for patents relating to genes.