유럽, 특히 영국에서 인간의 배아줄기세포의 특허 보호 및 생명윤리에 관한 연구

EU biotechnology directive published in July 1998 has influenced on legislation regarding patent in EU including U.K. In the Practice Notice 2003 the U.K. Intellectual Property Office began with granting a patent to invention which concerns human pluripotent stem cells arising from further division of totipotent stem cells, because they do not have the potential to develop into an entire human body, while totipotent cells have the potential to develop into the entire human body; therefore, they are not patentable because the human body at various stages of its formation and development is excluded from patentability by paragraph 3(a) of Schedule A2 of U.K. Patents Act 1977. The EPO Enlarged Board of Appeal issued its judgment in the WARF case in November 2008, and rejected the patent on the grounds that it involved the destruction of human embryos. U.K. Intellctual Property Office accepted the judgment of WARF case, and amended the Notice in 2009. Anybody hardly expects which impact U.K. patent policy on human embryo stem cells on patent policies of other countries' in EU can have in the future. The issue on patentability of human embryo stem cells has not been yet solved, and at present, we need to put our heads together to find a reasonable solution to this issue.