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What Is Science For Essay - Who Owns Science?

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What is Science for Essay - Who Owns Science?

Intellectual Property is not a tangible object that can be physically owned. However, it is an important issue in todays society. Many would feel the ownership of intellectual property is highly justified, whilst others would argue that intellectual property should not be owned. Such a controversial topic clearly needs to be examined carefully. There are 4 types of intellectual property: patents, copyright, trademarks and trade secrets, each with their own flaws and advantages. However, this essay with mainly focus on the ethics of patents.

A patent is a form of intellectual property that can be granted for either a process or a product. It provides the patent holder with exclusive rights to …show more content…

The application form is extensive, including descriptions of the invention, claims of the scope of the patent and an abstract. The UK intellectual property office then carry out preliminary examinations to ensure that all parts of the application are correct. This is followed by a substantive examination to test the novelty, inventiveness and industrial applicability of the patent subject. If all of these conditions are satisfied, the patent is then granted. The patent holder then has control over use, manufacture and sale of the product for the following 20 years. If another company breaks the patent, they could be subjected to legal action and have to reimburse the holder of the parent for damages.

There is some controversy over what is patentable material and what isn’t. Gene patents for example are a huge area of discussion. Currently, about 20% of genes are under some form of patent claim. Many question whether human life should be commercialised, arguing that the human genome is a product and therefore property of nature, not any individual or company. Compositions of matter are patent eligible, but products of nature are not. For a product to a be a novel invention, and therefore patentable, the process that distinguishes it from the natural form must be transformative. Gene patents do not claim parts of our chromosomes, but isolated copies of DNA with an equivalent sequence. The processing and modification of the DNA in the

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