Seminar in Evolving Law of Patents: Patents & Biotechnology

This seminar focuses on the ways in which biotechnological developments affect traditional notions of property, intellectual property, and information. In addition to patent law, other forms of protection, such as copyright, are examined through a biotechnological prism and compared with the way in which they operate, for example, in relation to the Internet and digital technology. There is also an examination of whether genetically engineered organisms and other biotechnological products should, if at all, be granted intellectual property protection either within the existing frameworks of intellectual property law or under some new regime designed specifically for that purpose. As is inevitable in any discussion of intellectual property law, international perspectives are important. (2 cr.)