EPLAW Patent Blog

EU - Brüstle v. Greenpeace / Opinion A-G

Brüstle v. Greenpeace, CJEU, Opinion of the Advocate General, 10 March 2011, Case C-34/10

According to Advocate General M. Yves Bot, totipotent cells carrying within them the capacity to evolve into a complete human being must be legally classified as human embryos and must therefore be excluded from patentability.

Nor can a procedure using other embryonic stem cells, known as pluripotent cells, be patented where it first requires the destruction or modification of the embryo.

Read the opinion (available in various languages) here.

Read the press release (in English) here.

Read our previous post here.

DE - Referral ECJ re 'Biotech Directive'

German Federal Supreme Court refers questions regarding the interpretation of the EC “Biotech Directive” (Directive 98/44/EC) to the European Court of Justice – patenting embryonic stem cells, by Tilman Mueller-Stoy and Thomas Friede, Bardehle & Pagenberg 

On November 12, 2009, the German Federal Supreme Court indicated that in the Brüstle ./. Greenpeace Case, Docket No. Xa ZR 58/07, questions on the interpretation of the exclusion clause that a patent shall not be granted on the use of human embryos for industrial or commercial purposes be referred to the European Court of Justice. Said provision was implemented into the German patent act on the basis of Article 6 of the Directive 98/44/EC on the legal protection of biotechnological inventions.

Read the complete post here.

Read the press release of the German Federal Supreme Court here.