Embryonic Stem Cell Patents

Professor Dr Aurora Plomer is Chair in Law and Bioethics and the Director of Sheffield Institute of Biotechnology Law and Ethics at The University of Sheffield. She has a dual background in Philosophy and Law. She is the Coordinator of a European FP6 funded project: Stem Cell Patents: European Patent Law and Ethics.Professor Dr Paul Torremans is City Solicitors' Educational Trust Professor of Intellectual Property Law at the School of Law of the University of Nottingham and Professor of Private International Law at the Faculty of Law of the University of Ghent (Belgium).

The book edited by Plomer and Torremans should be a compulsory reading for everyone interested in stem cell patenting in Europe. The essays of this book present the most thorough and complete analysis of the statutory and case law situation in this field in Europe.

• PART I: BACKGROUND ; 1. The Drafting History of the European Biotechnology Directive ; PART II: MORALITY, RESEARCH AND ETHICS ; 2. Towards Commonality? Policy Approaches to Human Embryonic Stem Cell Research in Europe ; 3. Human Embryonic Stem Cell Research in Central and Eastern Europe: A Comparative Analysis of Regulatory and Policy Approaches ; 4. Morality Provisions in Law Concerning the Commercialisation of Human Embryos and Stem Cells ; PART III: EUROPEAN PATENT LAW ; 5. A Comparative Analysis of the National Implementation of the Directive's Morality Clause ; 6. The Construction of the Directive's Moral Exclusions under the EPC ; 7. Towards Systemic Legal Conflict: Article 6(2)(c) of the Biotech Directive ; 8. Human Dignity, Human Rights and Article 6(1) of the Biotech Directive ; 9. Jurisdictional and Institutional Aspects of Stem Cell Patenting in Europe (EC and EPO): Institutional and Jurisdictional Tensions of Stem Cells Patenting in Europe ; 10. A Transnational Institution Confronted with a Single Jurisdiction Model: Guidance for the EPO's Implementation of the Directive from a Private International Law Perspective ; PART IV: WIDER ISSUES ; 11. An Ethics Committee for Patent Offices ; 12. The Research Exemption in Patent Law and its Application to hES Cell Research ; 13. Human Embryos, Patents and Global Trade: Assessing the Scope and Contents of the TRIPS Morality Exception ; 14. Stem Cells Patenting and Competition Law