ABSTRACT
This chapter outlines how, under the European Patent Convention (EPC), and the Patents Act 1977, the cases demonstrate that sufficient difficulties already arise when traditional substantive patent law criterias are applied to fast-moving, emerging technologies such as biotechnology without morality being presented as a general criterion for patentability. The problems presented by the language and concepts of the Patents Act 1977 for courts in the United Kingdom (UK) are outlined, as are those created for the European Patent Office (EPO) by virtue of the EPC. In Biogen/Hepatitis B (henceforth Biogen), the EPO again adopted a flexible approach to interpreting traditional patent law criteria in order to protect new technology. In denying the existence of an inventive step in Genentech the Court of Appeal applied the same substantive patent law provisions as the EPO but was reluctant to extend protection to biotechnological inventions.
