Title: | Sections 1 (2) (i), (5) and (6) and 1a of the Consolidated Patent Act No.91 of 28/01/2009 |
Field of IP: | Patents |
Type of flexibility: | Patentability of substances existing in nature |
Summary table: |
1 (2) In particular the following subject-matter or activities as such shall not be regarded as inventions:
(i) discoveries, scientific theories and mathematical methods,
(5) Patents shall not be granted in respect of essentially biological processes for the production of plants or animals. In this Act an "essentially biological process" means a process consisting entirely of natural phenomena such as crossing or selection.
Patents may, however, be granted for microbiological processes or other technical processes or products obtained by such processes. In this Act a "microbiological process" means any process involving microbiological material, performed on microbiological material or resulting in microbiological material.
(6) Inventions may be patentable even if they relate to a product consisting of or containing biological material or to 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-matter of an invention even if it previously occurred in nature. In this Act "biological material" means any material containing genetic information and capable of reproducing itself or being reproduced in a biological system.
1a. (1) 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.
(2) Notwithstanding subsection 1 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 constitute a patentable invention, even if the structure of that element is identical to that of a natural element.