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Equivocal Areas In Patent System Law essay

专利制度中的可疑区域

然而，随着生物技术和基因工程的出现，“道德”在当今的专利法治制度中一直扮演着越来越重要的地位。尽管如此，本文仍然发现有许多模棱两可的方面，特别是，没有道德的理论性标准或者方法来评定，是否一个发明在仔细审核过欧洲专利共约后，应该在道德角度上被拒绝。（以下简称“EPC”）文章53（a），它这样陈述到：

（欧洲专利不应该被授予关于）发明的商业开发将会违背“公共程序”或者道德，这样的开发不应仅仅因为它被法律或者规则在一些或者所有的缔约国中被禁止，而被视为违法。

这一规定为道德留下大量空间，且很大程度上不确定，这必将使道德条款更具争议性和模棱两可性，它已经在最近情况下导致了困惑与问题。

注意到关于道德规定的法案的部协调发展，这将阻止研究和生物技术领域的投资，因为没有专利性的确定性意味着

However, with the advent of biotechnology and genetic engineering, “morality” has been playing an increasingly more significant position in today’s patent law system. Nonetheless, this essay has observed that there are many ambiguous aspects, in particular, no explicit standard of morality or approach to judge whether an invention should be rejected on moral ground after carefully examining the European Patent Convention (hereafter “EPC”) Article 53(a), which states:

(European patents shall not be granted in respect of) inventions the commercial exploitation of which would be contrary to ‘ordre public’ or morality; such exploitation shall not be deemed to be so contrary merely because it is prohibited by law or regulation in some or all of the Contracting States. [2]

This provision leaves large room for morality to be interpreted with great uncertainty which will definitely make the morality provision more controversial and equivocal. Indeed, it has already led confusion and problems in recent cases.

Noting the incongruous development of case law regarding the morality provision, which will deter research and investment in biotechnology field since no certainty of patentability means no certainty of protection, this essay will focus on disparate interpretations of the morality standard and approaches of judgment under the European patent system, try to provide clear and comprehensive understanding of the situation confronted by the current system, namely, an unitary standard or universally accepted methodology is not formed yet.

In order to help recognize this equivocal area in European patent system, the essay will first briefly analyse the term “commercial exploitation” to clarify what the morality provision concerns; the second section which is also the core part of this essay will concentrate on the two different morality standards and the correspondent approaches of judgment through exploring the case law; then the third section will discuss the subsequent question of the various ways of assessing public opinions; finally, the right way of construing morality provision i.e. how broadly or narrowly should it be interpreted will be considered.

I.Commercial Exploitation

Before entering the main discussion, it is of significance to make clear that it is not the invention per se, but only the commercial exploitation of the invention is capable of being caught by Article 53(a) EPC. Just as the Technical Board of Appeal stated in Harvard/Transgenic Animal:

[This] case is concerned neither with the morality of genetically manipulating a mouse nor with the morality of the oncomouse thereby produced nor with the morality of patenting either the oncomouse or the genetic manipulation method but only with the morality of publication [3] or exploitation 本论文由英语论文网提供整理，提供论文代写，英语论文代写，代写论文，代写英语论文，代写留学生论文，代写英文论文，留学生论文代写相关核心关键词搜索。