ARCHE NOAH: Patent law amendment clearly restricts patents on life

Austria sends an important signal to the EU and the European Patent Office

Schiltern/Vienna (OTS) – The amendment to Austrian patent law passed the responsible committee for research, innovation and digitization in Parliament today, and the majority of MPs approved it. This means that the important new version will be dealt with in the National Council plenum at the end of April. “Conventionally bred plants and animals may no longer be patented in Austria as an alleged ‘invention’. With this, long-term demands of ARCHE NOAH are implemented”says Katherine Dolan, Policy Director of NOAH’S ARCHE, the Society for the Conservation of Crop Diversity and its Development. „The amendment sends an important signal to the EU and the European Patent Office: Patent law must no longer be misused to monopolize the seed market. Seeds are the basis of our nutrition and not an invention of a corporation!”

Plants and animals from conventional breeding are actually not patentable in Europe. In the practice of the European Patent Office, however, patents are granted due to loopholes in patent law. Examples from recent years are several patents on malting barley and beer (Carlsberg), a patent on corn with better digestibility (KWS), a patent on lettuce for warm climates (Rijk Zwann) and a patent on melon plants with bushy growth (Nunhems/BASF ).

In the amendment to the patent law, which also implements the new “European unitary patent”, the definition of “essentially biological processes for the breeding of plants and animals”, which are excluded from patentability, has now been supplemented. All classic breeding methods (methods without the use of genetic engineering) are now excluded. “Austria shows with the new patent law what an effective exclusion from patentability looks like. Austria will thus become a pioneer in Europe”so Katherine Dolan.