Patent protection in the field of animal breeding

Abstract

Abstract There are a rapidly growing number of patent applications relevant for the animal-breeding sector. Patent law is general in form and is seldom adapted to single areas of innovation. It was initially created for the purpose of granting exclusive rights to technical inventions; and it was taken for granted that higher animals, food production and pharmaceuticals were too important for mankind to be included under exclusive private rights. When patent law now is becoming increasingly in use in the animal sector, it is an unanswered question how the law will apply to this particular field of innovation. There is legal uncertainty of how the courts will apply the general law to this particular field. Patent law has the potential to alter the existing legal conditions for competition and investments in the field of animal breeding, and needs therefore a higher level of awareness among policy makers, animal breeders and farmers.