Salad days: Tomatoes, broccoli and radish patents

Under the European Patent Convention (EPC), patent protection is in principle available to inventions in all areas of technology, including agriculture and horticulture. However, Article 53(b) EPC excludes from patent protection “plant and  animal varieties and essentially biological processes for the production of plants and animals”. How this provision is to be  interpreted has been the subject of much debate over the years.

This article was first published in Life Sciences Intellectual Property Review, October 2013.