On 15th June 2023, Professor Aisling McMahon delivered an invited presentation based on research from the European Research Council funded PatentsInHumans project at the “Engineering Life: Regulating Science, Risks, and Society in Europe Conference” organised which was held in Rice University’s Global Center in Paris. This international interdisciplinary conference brought together leading international academics from a range of disciplines to discuss the legacy and impact of the International Conference on Recombinant DNA Molecules held in February 1975, the so-called Asilomar Conference. The aim was to discuss the legacy of the Asilomar conference as we approach its 50th Anniversary. The Asilomar meeting was a key event in science regulatory policy bringing together leading scientists and others working on Recombinant DNA to discuss how best to regulate such emerging technologies.
Professor Aisling McMahon’s presentation was delivered virtually and was entitled “Embedding Ethical Considerations in Regulation: Patents, ‘Ethical’ Licensing Clauses and Self-Regulatory Spaces.” In this presentation, she discussed how patent licensing clauses can be used as a mechanism to complement broader approaches around the regulation of ethical contentious technologies. In her paper, she put forward a model for how such ethical licensing approaches could be used as an additional tool to complement existing approaches to the regulation of emerging technologies.
You can find out more about the PatentsInHumans project by visiting the project website: www.patentsinhumans.eu or by watching this short video.