TECHNIQUES, IMPLEMENTS, INVENTIONS - CHAN GES IN BIOTECHNOLOGY

How does a common action arise between researchers, industrialists and legal experts when patents are filed ? This question is investigated by looking at the controversies that have arisen around hybridoma tech nology in bioindustry. Five issues are studied: the definition of a ba sic technique, the notion of identical antibodies, the meaning of an o bvious application, the persons recognized as experts, and the determi nation of what is to be set down to natural properties or to human int erventions. The work that changes hybridoma into an ''invention'' resu lts from a construction that brings together science and law.