Introduction: Biodiversity, Biotechnology, and the Legal Protection of Traditional Knowledge

This symposium volume is composed of five articles that were originally presented as papers at a conference, held at Washington University School of Law on April 4–6, 2003, on the general topic, “Biodiversity, Biotechnology, and the Legal Protection of Traditional Knowledge,” as well as a concluding article which discuss an important post-conference development at Washington University School of Law. Like the conference itself, these articles address the three general topics that are implicit in the title of the conference and this symposium volume

Introduction: Re-Engineering Patent Law and the Challenge of New Technologies

The constitutionally mandated purpose of the U.S. patent system is to promote the progress of “useful Arts”— or in more modern parlance, to promote technological innovation. Congress is empowered to accomplish this purpose by securing for limited times to inventors the exclusive right to their discoveries. However, to ensure that the grant of exclusive patent rights does in fact promote— rather than retard— technological innovation, each of the institutional actors in the U.S. patent system— Congress, the courts, and the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office— must perennially balance the need to provide inventors with adequate incentives to innovate against the public interest in having access to and fostering a competitive marketplace for innovations. In keeping with this overall approach to the topic of this symposium, nine rising young patent law academics were asked to present papers on a topic of their choice, the only specified parameters being that they focus 1) on current patent policy issues; 2) particularly those with an international, comparative, or interdisciplinary dimension; and 3) more particularly still, those policy issues that might relate to biotechnology law or the life sciences. In response, these nine authors produced a wide range of complementary papers that seemed to fall rather naturally into three overlapping clusters. Three of the papers address particular administrative issues of patent policy confronting the PTO; three papers address issues of judicial— i.e. CAFC— supervision of patent policy in the U.S.; and three papers focus on international and/or comparative issues of patent policy. Accordingly, the articles are grouped under these three general headings. To underscore the importance of international and comparative aspects of patent policy, the final section of the symposium includes two supplemental articles in addition to the three papers presented at the conference. The first is an article by Dr. Nuno Pires de Carvalho, who is on the staff of the World Intellectual Property Organization and served as one of the three keynote speakers at the conference. The second is an article by Professor Joseph Straus, Professor of Law at the Universities of Ljubljana and Munich, and Head of Department at the Max-Planck Institute for Foreign and International Patent, Copyright and Competition Law, Munich. Dr. Straus was to have been a paper presenter at the conference but because of a schedule conflict was not able to attend. However, he graciously allowed and secured permission for the Washington University Journal of Law & Policy to publish a slightly amended text of the Katz-Kiley Lecture which he gave at the University of Houston Law Center on November 3, 1999

The Interface Between International Intellectual Property and Environmental Protection: Biodiversity and Biotechnology

The Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights ( TRIPS ) Agreement, part of the Final Act of the Uruguay Round of Multilateral Trade Negotiations, concluded on December 15, 1993. It seeks to strengthen international intellectual property protection in order to promote world trade. TRIPS also seeks to stimulate rapid international economic development that will likely produce a virtual technological transformation of human society and perhaps much of the natural world. In contrast, the United Nations Framework Convention on Biological Diversity ( Biodiversity Treaty ), concluded on June 5, 1992, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, seeks to preserve the natural world and maintain society\u27s traditional, essentially agrarian, relationship to it. It also seeks to promote the concept of sustainable development. The debate over TRIPS and the Biodiversity Treaty has exposed a series of fault lines dividing technology-rich industrialized countries located in the temperate zone of the Northern Hemisphere, and the biodiversity-rich developing countries located primarily in the tropics and Southern Hemisphere. Part I of this Article will describe two of the most visible North- South conflicts, and Part II will examine the treaty provisions that have given rise to these conflicts. Part III will examine the two specific issues that are at the root of these North-South conflicts, and will conclude with a more cooperative vision of the interface between international intellectual property and environmental protection

Introduction: Symposium on Intellectual Property, Digital Technology & Electronic Commerce

April 6-7, 2001, at the 2001 Heart of America Intellectual Property Conference, jointly sponsored by Washington University School of Law and the Bar Association of Metropolitan St. Louis, with the cooperation of the St. Louis Technology Gateway Alliance and Thompson Coburn, L.L.P. Three keynote speakers introduced the three major themes of the conference: Marybeth Peters, Register of Copyrights at the U.S. Copyright Office, spoke on digital copyright issues; Commissioner Mozelle Thompson of the Federal Trade Commission, spoke on the regulation of electronic commerce; and Stephen Kunin, Deputy Commissioner for Patent Examination Policy, U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, spoke on the eligibility of business software applications for patent protection. In keeping with these three themes, seven law professors and two economists each presented a paper on a personally selected topic. This volume includes these papers in addition to a related article. In total, three articles address digital copyright and database protection, four articles address the Uniform Computer Information Transactions Act (UCITA) and electronic commerce, and three articles focus on business method patents and bioinformatics