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Published online 16 November 2009 | Nature 462, 265 (2009) | doi:10.1038/462265a

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Fresh hope for German stem-cell patent case

Referral to European Court may help to harmonize laws on intellectual property.

Alison Abbott

The German federal supreme court has referred a controversial and already lengthy patent dispute about human embryonic stem (hES) cells to the European Court of Justice.

The move might drag out the case — first brought to the German patent court in 2004 — for another two years.

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  • The report may be incorrect in one particular. German law is (I believe) based not on European Union guidelines (which so far as I know do not exist) but on European Patent Office (EPO) rules. The EPO is not a creature of the European Union (all EU countries are members of the EPO, but so are several others), and (in a recent case on stem cells) the EPO Appeal Board refused to allow an appeal to the European Court. We could end up with a legally interesting clash of jurisdictions

    • 17 Nov, 2009
    • Posted by: Timothy Roberts

  • The author is probably referring to the Directive 98/44/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council. It was intended to harmonize the laws of member states regarding the patentability of biotechnological inventions.
    It took Germany more than 6 years to implement it, resulting in the so-called "Biopatentgesetz" (12/2004). And yes – we are already in the middle of a "clash of jurisdictions". Legally interesting or better: intolerable for the future of a harmonized European patent model.

    • 17 Nov, 2009
    • Posted by: Anselm Geiger