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...

Upon request of the Netherlands Minister of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality a study has been conducted into the future of plant breeding in the light of developments around plant breeder’s rights and patent rights. The following questions were formulated: Present a review of the trends in...

Intellectual property rights have, from their inception, been shaped by international treaties. National legislators have had to look at the international scene to gain some insight into the prevailing intellectual property standards. This trend was less prominent in the field of patent law and...

Setting up a new business may be really tough. Let's assume you want to produce and market DVD-players. You can not ignore the fact that the DVD technology is protected with patents. More than 850 patents owned by some 10 patent holders around the world, such as Philips, Sony, Toshiba, Hitachi,...

The paper critically analyses the various TRIPS provisions relevant to patent law. Topics covered include the relationship between the TRIPs agreement and other intellectual property treaties, patentable subject matter, patentability requirements, scope of protection, transfer and (voluntary and...

In the ongoing debate concerning DNA patents, there is a need for empirical data. We aim at treating this data set for DNA patents related to diagnostic genetic testing. To this end we developed two tools to facilitate this process. First, we set up a search strategy to find the relevant...

While the recent WTO agreement allowing developing countries to import life-saving drugs by bypassing patent laws is beneficial, a majority of the drugs used to combat epidemics are off-patent or not patented in many developing countries. Consequently, the agreement will do very little to assist...

This article evaluates the evolving jurisprudence on the precautionary approach (Article 5.7 of the SPS Agreement) in World Trade Organization dispute settlement. While the jurisprudence demonstrates that panels and the Appellate Body have balanced a Member’s precautionary autonomy with the...

Much has been written about numerous aspects of investor-state dispute settlement, and the literature grows larger with the release of every publicly available arbitral ruling. One exception, however, is intellectual property provisions in international investment agreements. The absence of...