An Overview On Patenting Of Medical Procedures

Medical procedures and patent policies: an overview

The patentability of medical procedures is a topic that has been subject to debate since several years. Ethical and economic issues concerning the same have led fueled discussions surrounding the patentability of medical procedures, particularly in the last 40 years. In order to provide validation and incentives to medical experts who invent innovative medical procedures, they were often granted patents over the years. In her paper titled "Patent Policy and Medical Procedures: The Case for Statutory Exclusion from Patentability", Wendy Yang has underlined the fact that approximately 15 medical procedures were patented every week in the United States, thus proving that medical procedures were patentable subject matters. Essentially, a medical procedure patent can be defined as patents that protect the rights over innovative procedural steps in a medical procedure. It is pertinent to note that the patent does not