Patents and Doctors, and the USTR TPP text
The recently obtained US draft text for the intellectual property rights chapter for the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP) contains provisions that go far beyond the requirements of international agreements as well as the standards of US law itself. One particular area of concern involves the broad definition of patent eligible subject matter that fails to provide for any exception from patentability for surgical methods or procedures. Nor does the draft language contain any exception for the enforcement of surgical method patents. Continue Reading