In July 1998 the European Parliament and Council agreed a Directive on the legal protection of bio-technological inventions. Under this Directive, Member States are obliged to protect bio-technological inventions under National patent law and must implement the terms of the Directive by 30 July 2000.
The Directive is designed to protect:
- Biological material defined as 'any material containing generic information and capable of reproducing itself or being reproduced in a biological system'; and
- 'micro biological processes' defined as any process involving or performed upon or resulting in micro biological material.
Such material isolated from its natural environment or produced by means of a technical process may be the subject of an invention even if it previously occurred in nature.
