The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has just published "Genetic inventions, intellectual property rights and licensing practices: Evidence and policies". The main body of this 110-page report is based on discussions at an expert workshop held by the OECD Working Party on Biotechnology on 24-25 January 2002 in Berlin, Germany. The workshop was entitled "Genetic inventions, IPR, and licensing practices" and was attended by over 100 private and public sector experts from 18 OECD countries. The objectives of the workshop were to assess the impact of patents on genetic inventions (i.e. patents whose claims include nucleotide (DNA or RNA) sequences) on access to the information and technologies covered by DNA patents and to discuss the challenges they pose for scientists, industrialists and medical practitioners. See http://www.oecd.org/pdf/M00037000/M00037885.pdf (685 KB) or contact [email protected] for more information.

15/01/2003