Patenting Criteria and Scope (June 6, 2003)

Focus questions for the meeting:

• What is the public interest perspective with regard to patenting criteria?
• What is the evidence there is a growing trend to patent knowledge over inventions. Should pure knowledge about the physical world and basic research be excluded from patenting (e.g. discoveries, scientific theories, and mathematical methods)
• Should requirements for an inventive step and utility be more narrowly defined and applied more rigorously?
• Should patents be limited to the scope no greater than the contribution of the invention or the described application?
• Should plants be patentable, and if so, to what extent? What are the possible effects of the Plant Breeders Equity Act on agriculture, traditional knowledge, and the public domain?