Diagnostic Kits/Biotechnology and Intellectual Property Reinventing the Commons

• Problems with intellectual property protection of biotechnological inventions
  • American, Canadian and Australian Issues
    • NO AMERICAN COMMENT
  • Proposed policies to address these concerns
    • proposed legislation to reform its patent law
      • "The original proposal for reform included a third party submission procedure for prior art, a post- grant opposition process with two windows for launching opposition (one, immediately after issue and a second at any time later), limitations on the availability of preliminary injunctions, adoption of a first-to-file rule (as opposed to the current first-to-invent rule), the requirement that all applications be published after 18 months (starting from the priority date) and a reinvigoration of the duty of candour."
      • These reforms meet fairly heavy resistance and have not been successful to date. While these changes could effect patent law generally it is not clear than any of the proposed changes has any specific relevance to the field of diagnostic genetic kits.