PATENTING INVENTIONS IN THE FIELD OF BIOLOGY AND CHEMISTRY - GERMAN AND EUROPEAN PATENT-LAW AND CASE LAW

Patent law is intended to provide protection for new and inventive ach ievements in technology. Technical progress is considered to be the pu rpose and aim of patent law. The main objective of patent law is to pr otect patentable results according to the latest state of science and research. It is most important to encourage the inventor to completely publish his knowledge. As a reward for this the inventor is granted a right of exclusion which is limited in time: the patent. It is not th e purpose of patent law to enrich mere theory but to create industrial ly applicable knowledge for the public. This contribution deals with i mportant problems to be considered by inventors in the patenting of in ventions in the field of biology and chemistry. Such questions are rel ated particularly to the accessibility of inventions and discoveries t o patent protection, the various kinds (categories) of patents, the re quirement of novelty, complete disclosure of the invention, patentabil ity of DNA sequences and proteins, as well as inventive step.