The German biotechnology industry missed the accession of this key technology in the 1980s. Policy makers make different efforts to overcome shortcomings and recent gaps. Public funding schemes have been implemented to establish a flourish biotech industry in Germany. We assume that R&D policy...

The continued development of and affordable access to potentially life saving pharmaceuticals, gene therapies and diagnostics is unquestionably a socially important issue. However, crafting government policy to encourage the development of and allowing affordable access to those services and...

The paper tests empirically the role of knowledge stocks to explain the regional distribution of Germany's biotechnology founders. We present an unique approach to highlight the role of knowledge spillovers as we differentiate according the local embeddedness and research affinity of founders....

Under FDA's labeling policy, no labeling is needed about the use of the process of genetic engineering in foods. Disclosures are only needed if the modification changes the material characteristics of the food in a way that requires a new name, or if the change involves risks to consumers such...

Using a unique dataset of patent applications, I examine the importance of differences in patent laws, demand for the invention, and costs of patenting across countries on firms' propensity to pursue agricultural biotechnology patents in different countries. I isolate the propensity to patent, a...

The recent revolution in the field of biotechnology has triggered off another round of controversy between the developed countries of the North and the developing countries of the South concerning access to genetic resources and equitable sharing of its benefits. Developed countries assert...

This paper considers the current performance and future prospects of the UK biotech industry, particularly the biomedical sector. The central argument is that the performance of the UK biotech industry cannot be understood in isolation from the European system of regulation and, increasingly,...

This article discusses a variety of public policy issues relating to gene patenting. Public policy issues discussed include privacy and cloning, some of the economic considerations of obtaining gene patents, the legal environment of gene patenting, and the legalities and special problems that...

Congress and the Food and Drug Administration have heard several recent calls for weakening the patent protection supplied under the Hatch-Waxman Amendments to the basic patent and food and drug laws, which govern the relationship between holders of pharmaceutical patents and their eventual...

Fledgling efforts exist to establish open-source projects in biotechnology. Following copyleft, participants agree that advances in the technology must remain as openly available as the original technology. Such agreements implicate patent misuse, which is defined as an impermissible attempt to...