Biotechnology Patent Protection Act of 1993 : report (to accompany S. 298).

  • United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary
Date:
[1993]
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Biotechnology Patent Protection Act of 1993 : report (to accompany S. 298). Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    In many respects this legislation is considered a continuation of the congressional policy behind the Process Patent Amendments Act of 1988. Without appropriate process claims in their patents, biotechnology inventors cannot take advantage of the benefits of the act. As a consequence, the advantages of the act are essentially nullified for the biotechnology industry. Finally, S. 298 helps har- monize our laws with those of our trading partners, at least with regard to biotechnology intellectual property. IV. VOTE OF THE COMMITTEE On March 16, 1993, the Subcommittee on Patents, Copyrights and Trademarks reported S. 298 to the Committee on the Judici- ary. On May 6, 1993, the Committee on the Judiciary, a quorum being present, favorably reported by unanimous consent S. 298. V. TEXT OF S. 298 AS REPORTED [103d Cong., 1st sess.] A BILL To amend title 35, United States Code, with respect to patents on biotechnological processes Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, TITLE I—BIOTECHNOLOGICAL PROCESS PATENTS | SEC. 101. CONDITIONS FOR PATENTABILITY; NONOBVIOUS SUBJECT MATTER. Section 103 of title 35, United States Code, is amended— (1) in the first unnumbered paragraph by inserting “(a)” be- fore “A patent”; (2) in the second unnumbered paragraph by inserting “(b)” before “Subject matter”; and (3) by adding at the end thereof the following new sub- sections: “(c) Notwithstanding any other provision of this section, a claimed process of making or using a machine, manufacture, or composition of matter is not obvious under this section if— “(1) the machine, manufacture, or composition of matter is novel under section 102 of this title and nonobvious under this “(2) the claimed process is a biotechnological process as de- fined in subsection (d); and “(3)(A) the machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, and the claimed process invention at the time it was made, were owned by the same person or subject to an obligation of assignment to the same person; and “(B) claims to the process and to the machine, manufacture, or composition of matter— | “(i) are entitled to the same effective filing date; and “(ii) appear in the same patent application, different pat- ent applications, or patent which is owned by the same
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