Clarifying Or Confusing? The European Commission Chews On Tomatoes And Broccoli

The European Commission Disagrees with the European Patent Office on the Patentability of Plants and Plant Parts Produced by Essentially Biological Processes

Following last year's decisions by the Enlarged Board of Appeal of the European Patent Office ("EPO") on referrals G 2/12 and G2/13 ("Tomatoes II" and "Broccoli II"), the European Commission ("Commission") issued an interpretative Notice on certain articles of the Directive 98/44/EC—known as the Biotechnology Directive—stating their view that when adopting Directive 98/44/EC, the EU legislator's intention was to exclude from patentability products (plants/animals and plant/animal parts) that are obtained by means of essentially biological processes.