§ Mr. MorleyTo ask the President of the Board of Trade if the Government will take action to implement the recommendations of the Nuffield Council on Bioethics report on human tissue regarding the adoption of a protocol to the European patent convention to set out the criteria to be used by national courts when applying the immorality exclusion to patents in the area of human and animal tissue. [28457]
§ Mr. Ian TaylorThe suggestion in the Nuffield Council on Bioethics report for a protocol to the European patent convention on the interpretation of the morality exclusion is interesting. However, as the report recognises, reaching agreement among all member states on such a protocol could be very time consuming. The European Commission is reflecting on how to deal with the rejection of the proposed EC directive on the legal protection of biotechnological inventions by the European Parliament and it is expected that they will come forward with a new proposal in the near future. In the light of this, a separate initiative among contracting states of the convention would not be appropriate at the present time.