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Legislative Implementation of Flexibilities - Germany

Title:Section 1, 2a (1) 1), (2) and (3) 2), 3) and 4) of the Patent Act of 16/12/1980 as last amended by Act of 31/07/2009
Field of IP:Patents
Type of flexibility:Exclusion from patentability of plants
Summary table:PDF

Provisions of Law

Section 1

(1) Patents shall be granted for inventions in any technical field if they are novel, involve an inventive step and are susceptible of industrial application.

(2) Patents shall be granted for inventions within the terms of subsection (1) even if the subject matter concerns a product consisting of or containing biological material or a process by means of which biological material is produced, processed or used. Biological material that has been isolated from its natural environment or produced by means of a technical process may be the subject matter of an invention even if it had previously occurred in nature.

Section 2a

(1) Patents shall not be granted for

1. plant or animal varieties or for essentially biological processes for breeding plants or animals;

(2) Patents can be granted for inventions

1. having as subject matter plants or animals if the technical realization of the invention is not restricted to a particular plant or animal variety;

2. having as subject matter a microbiological or other technical process or a product obtained by means of such a process, unless a plant or animal variety is concerned.

Section 1a(3) shall apply mutatis mutandis.

(3) In accordance with this Act:

2. "microbiological process" shall denote any process involving the use of or intervention in microbiological material or by which microbiological material results;

3. "an essentially biological process" shall denote any process for breeding plants or animals based entirely on natural phenomena such as crossing or selection;

4. "plant variety" shall denote a variety in accordance with the definition of Regulation (EC) No. 2100/94 of the Council of July 27, 1994 on Community Plant Variety Types (OJ L 227, p. 1) in the valid version.

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