Nanotechnology and Biotechnology Patents

Abstract

A patent is enormously powerful because it protects novel and non-obvious ideas and not just the expression of those ideas. The patent system is meant to protect technology—actual machines, devices, and new chemical biotechnological/nano-technological compositions—rather than pure concepts. Once an invention is patented, the inventor alone reaps the benefits of his creation and has the right to exclude others from using his invention and in return for this period of exclusive use, the inventor fully discloses his invention to the public.1 The development of biotechnology patents is fairly young and pure nanotechnology is still in embryonic form with a danger to patent merely science and abstract ideas belonging to humanity. The decisive case that gave birth to the field of biotechnology patent law was Diamond v. Chakrabarty2 where the United States Supreme Court held that Congress meant for ‘anything under the sun’ to be patented as long as...

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