Professor Aisling McMahon has published a peer-reviewed chapter in an edited collection “European Patent Law: The Unified Patent Court and the European Patent Convention” which was edited by Professor Duncan Matthews (Queen Mary, University of London) and Professor Paul Torremans (University of Nottingham). In his Preface to the collection, Lord Justice Colin Birss (Judge of the Court of Appeal of England and Wales) describes the collection as bringing together individual essays by ‘thought leaders in Europe in this field.’ The collection examines European Patent Law at a pivotal time as the unitary patent system commences.
Professor McMahon’s chapter is entitled ‘Decision-Makers, Institutional Influences and the Role of Ethical issues in the Patenting of Biotechnological Inventions in Europe: Enter the Unitary Patent System’. It examines the potential role of ‘ethical’ considerations within patent decision-making in Europe for biotechnological inventions. In doing so, the chapter examines to what extent the introduction of the Unified Patent Court– and the unitary patent system more generally – and this change to the underlying institutional system within European patent decision-making, has the potential to influence the current interpretative approach for how ethical issues are considered in the patenting of biotechnological inventions in Europe. It puts forward the case for why a renewed conversation is urgently needed around what normative role ethical issues should play in European patent law at this juncture.
Professor Aisling McMahon, is a Professor of Law in the School of Law and Criminology, Maynooth University whose research specialises in health and intellectual property law. She is the Principal Investigator of the PatentsInHumans project. You can find out more about the PatentsInHumans project by visiting the project website: www.patentsinhumans.eu or by watching this short video.