Die europäische Richtlinie für Genpatente - eine ordnungspolitische Institution aus Sicht der Patenttheorie

The major legal regulation for patent protection of genetic inventions within the European Union (EU) is the so called 'Biopatentrichtlinie' (BPR). The goal of this guideline is the promotion of R&D in the area of genetic engineering. The following paper shows that the BPR lacks two important economic indicators which impede an efficient promotion of R&D. First, legal regulation provides the same levels of protection to genetic basic knowledge as well as to specific applications, even though free access to genetic basics is of vital importance for further progress of this sector. Second, even with the help of BPR, policy failed to reveal the limits of patent protection in the field of living matter. A fact that not only leads to significant uncertainties but from which also suffer small and medium sized enterprises, which were up to now the driving force of this young industry.