[MPWG] Fwd: Okay to post this to MPWG listserve? -- ABC article on ASP comments to USPTO guidance on natural products

[De Angelis, Patricia]

I am posting this news item, with permission, from the latest (October)
issue of American Botanical Council's *HerbalGram*.


*New Guidance from US Patent and Trademark Office Restricts Patent
Eligibility for Natural Products
<http://abc.herbalgram.org/site/R?i=RCRX_R6SWPtaQes6xw4BAQ>American Society
of Pharmacognosy Submits Public Comments*
*By Ash Lindstrom*
Earlier this year, the United States Patent and Trademark Office issued new
guidance for determining patent eligibility. The 2014 guidance, intended to
align with two recent Supreme Court decisions, specifies that products
submitted for patent protection must be "markedly different" from what
exists in nature, thereby restricting the patent eligibility of isolated
natural product chemicals. Read more>>
<http://abc.herbalgram.org/site/R?i=6eYXoc80xlAwGngMA5nlQw>

The patenting of natural products and plants is a point of concern when it
comes to intellectual property rights and the ability of people to continue
to have access to their own traditional medicines.

Here are a couple of articles discussing the issue from the natural
products industry perspective and the traditional knowledge perspective:

Intellectual Property Protection of Natural Products (2004)
http://www.asiabiotech.com/publication/apbn/08/english/preserved-docs/0810/0540_0545.pdf

Intellectual Property and Traditional Medicinal Knowledge (~2008)
http://www.wipo.int/export/sites/www/tk/en/resources/pdf/tk_brief6.pdf

Patricia S. De Angelis, Ph.D.
Botanist, US Fish & Wildlife Service-Division of Scientific Authority
Chair, Plant Conservation Alliance-Medicinal Plant Working Group
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