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Legislative Implementation of Flexibilities - Finland

Title:Sections 1 (2.1), (5) and (6) and 1a of the Patents Act No. 550 of 15/12/1967 as last amended by Act No. 684 of 21/07/2006
Field of IP:Patents
Type of flexibility:Patentability of substances existing in nature
Summary table:PDF

Provisions of Law

Section 1

2. The following, as such, shall not be regarded as inventions:

(1) discoveries, scientific theories and mathematical methods;

5. Patents shall not be granted for essentially biological processes for the production of plants or animals. For the purposes of this Act a process for the production of plants or animals shall be considered essentially biological if it consists entirely of natural phenomena such as crossing or selection. What is said above shall be without prejudice to the patentability of inventions which concern a microbiological or other technical process or a product obtained by means of such a process. For the purposes of this Act 'microbiological process' means any process involving or performed upon or resulting in microbiological material.

6. Inventions shall be patentable even if they concern a product consisting of or containing biological material or a process by means of which biological material is produced, processed or used. Biological material which is isolated from its natural environment or produced by means of a technical process may be the subject of an invention even if it previously occurred in nature. For the purposes of this Act 'biological material' means any material containing genetic information and capable of reproducing itself or being reproduced in a biological system.

Section 1 a

The human body, at the various stages of its formation and development, and the simple discovery of one of its elements, including the sequence or partial sequence of a gene, cannot constitute patentable inventions.

An element isolated from the human body or otherwise produced by means of a technical process, including the sequence or partial sequence of a gene, may, without prejudice to the provisions of subsection (1), where the requirements for patentability are fulfilled, constitute a patentable invention, even if the structure of that element is identical to that of a natural element.

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