‘The Genetic Code is 3.6 Billion Years Old: It’s Time for a Rewrite': Questioning the Metaphors and Analogies of Synthetic Biology and Life Science Patenting
Annabelle Lever (ed.), New Frontiers in the Philosophy of Intellectual Property. Cambridge University Press, 2012
31 Pages Posted: 27 Dec 2018
Date Written: 2012
Abstract
This chapter is about science, patent law and the use of language that supports the extension of patent claims ever deeper into the realms of nature. By language I refer in particular to the use of figures of speech, terminologies and epistemologies that both express and support powerful explanatory and justificatory conceptual systems. Undoubtedly, chemical, informational and mechanistic ways of understanding life have all been enormously helpful to scientists, as are the metaphors and analogies which frame their verbal and written forms of expression. The point of the chapter is not to undermine them, but to examine critically what implications they have for patent law and policy, in particular their consequences for the positioning of boundaries between the patentable and the unpatentable.
Keywords: patents, intellectual property, sythetic biology, metaphor, analogy
JEL Classification: O3
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation