Patents protecting biotechnological invention are becoming ever more important. Because biotechnology has many differences with respect to other technologies, lessons learned in other fields of technology cannot simply be transferred to adopt a suitable strategy for dealing with biotechnology inventions.

In this volume, general aspects of biopatent law will be discussed. This involves questions of patentability, including ethical issues and issues of technicality, as well as questions of patent exhaustion in cases were reproducible subject matter, like cells or seeds, is protected....