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Plomer, Aurora --- "The European Union’s IP policy and funding of stem cell research" [2017] ELECD 814; in Matthews, Duncan; Zech, Herbert (eds), "Research Handbook on Intellectual Property and the Life Sciences" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2017) 229

Book Title: Research Handbook on Intellectual Property and the Life Sciences

Editor(s): Matthews, Duncan; Zech, Herbert

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781783479443

Section: Chapter 13

Section Title: The European Union’s IP policy and funding of stem cell research

Author(s): Plomer, Aurora

Number of pages: 14

Abstract/Description:

There is a growing body of scholarship on the legislative and judicial moral exclusions on stem cell patents in the European Union (EU), but little on the EU’s policy on patents arising from stem cell research projects funded by the European Union. The aim of this chapter is to initiate such an enquiry to determine whether the European Union policy strikes the right balance between the protection of IP and the public interest in exploitation and dissemination of the outputs of publicly funded research. The first part examines the legacy of the Brüstle ruling in the current legal challenges to the funding of stem cell research. The second calls for greater attention to the interface between EU policy on the funding of scientific research and IP policy in the European Union. It provides an overview of the aims of the European Union’s funding programmes and their extension from applied technology, in the early years of the Union, to basic science and the ‘knowledge economy’ in the last decade. The third part analyses the key elements of the EU’s IP policy in the FP7 Programme and examines the EU Commission’s dataset on IPRs resulting from the projects funded under this policy. The analysis suggests that the EU’s IP policy is liable to frustrate the pursuit of scientific research and stem cell science as a cooperative venture for the benefit of the public through the triple lock of prioritizing patent protection over publication in scholarly journals, encouraging the withholding of patent applications and minimal reporting requirements. The last part illustrates with a case study the need for increased public scrutiny and transparency on patents generated under EU-funded projects to facilitate public access to the benefits of EU-funded research. The EU court (CJEU) judgment of 2011 in Brüstle v Greenpeaceleft scientists in fear for the future of human embryonic stem cell (hESC) research in Europe.They were right.Although the ruling was ostensibly directed at the alleged (im)morality of hESC patents, opponents of hESC research immediately seized upon the ruling to press for an end to the funding of hESC research which destroys human embryos or presumes their destruction under the new Horizon 2020 programme.The attempts narrowly failed but were followed by a petition organized by the pro-life group ‘One of Us’for the Commission to cease the funding of ‘unethical’ research on human embryos.One of Us’s goal is to ‘advance the protection of human life from conception in Europe – within the possibilities of the competency of the EU’.The petition had been signed by 1.7 million EU citizens.The Commission declined to reopen the issue on the grounds that hESC funding had been extensively considered by all the EU institutions and settled through the EU’s democratic process for the adoption of the Horizon 2020 programme.