Over the past years we have witnessed patents related to in vitro diagnostic methods, as well as patents on human genes. Although patents on diagnostics and patents on human genes are not novel, patents on genes for diagnostics are a rather unseen combination. The grant by the European Patent...

The extension of patent protection to biological material is by no means a recent phenomenon in Belgium. In 1836 the Belgian Patent Office granted the first patent for a micro-organism, viz. a yeast for the production of beer. A century later, in 1949, the Office delivered the first patent for a...

During the Covid 19 Pandemic, there have been countless calls for the creation of ''global public goods'' or ''global commons'' issued by a variety of actors with sometimes diametrically opposed views, as if the two notions had the same meaning. And indeed, even today these notions are still...