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McLennan, Alison; Rimmer, Matthew --- "Cosmo, Cosmolino: Patent Law and Nanotechnology" [2012] ELECD 140; in Rimmer, Matthew; McLennan, Alison (eds), "Intellectual Property and Emerging Technologies" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2012)

Book Title: Intellectual Property and Emerging Technologies

Editor(s): Rimmer, Matthew; McLennan, Alison

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781849802468

Section: Chapter 10

Section Title: Cosmo, Cosmolino: Patent Law and Nanotechnology

Author(s): McLennan, Alison; Rimmer, Matthew

Number of pages: 36

Extract:

10. Cosmo, Cosmolino: patent law and
nanotechnology
Alison McLennan and Matthew Rimmer

`She would sing to it sweetly, Cosmo, Cosmolino, world, little world'
Helen Garner, Cosmo, Cosmolino1

Gary Marchant and his colleagues observe that nanotechnology is an
exemplar of an emerging technology:

Nanotechnology is the latest in a growing list of emerging technologies that
includes nuclear technologies, genetics, reproductive biology, biotechnology,
information technology, robotics, communication technologies, surveillance
technologies, synthetic biology, and neuroscience. As was the case for many of
the technologies that came before, a key question facing nanotechnology is what
type of regulatory oversight is appropriate for this emerging technology.2

Ian Kerr and Goldie Bassie pithily put the question, `How ought today's
policy-makers to address such concerns about a technology "so new that, in
truth, it barely exists"?'3
Nanotechnology is the field of science and technology that is focused
around the hundred nanometer scale downwards.4 It refers to devices

1
Garner, Helen (1992), Cosmo, Cosmolino, Melbourne: McPhee Gribble and
Penguin Books, 144.
2
Marchant, G., D. Sylvester and K. Abbott (2009), `What Does the History of
Technology Regulation Teach Us About Nano Oversight?' Journal of Law,
Medicine, and Ethics, 37, 724­31 at 724.
3
Kerr, I. and G. Bassie (2004), `Not That Much Room? Nanotechnology, Net-
works and the Politics of Dancing', Health Law Journal, 12, 103­23.
4
For a discussion of the historical development of nanotechnology, see Drexler, K.
Eric (1986), Engines of Creation: The Coming Era of Nanotechnology, Garden
City: ...