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87 J. Pat. & Trademark Off. Soc'y 525 (2005)
Access to Genetic Resources and Equitable Benefit Sharing through a New Disclosure Requirement in the Patent System: An Issue in Search of a Forum

handle is hein.journals/jpatos87 and id is 527 raw text is: Access to Genetic Resources and
Equitable Benefit Sharing
Through a New Disclosure
Requirement in the Patent System:
An Issue in Search of a Forum
Dominic Keating*
I. INTRODUCTION/ GENESIS OF A NEW DISCLOSURE REQUIREMENT
A ccording to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and
Development, a successful Doha Round of multilateral trade
negotiations in the World Trade Organization (WTO) may reduce the
number of poor in developing countries by 300 million by 2015 and may
create a $2.8 trillion increase in global income over the next ten years.'
The Doha round is scheduled to conclude by the end of 2005, although
it is likely to exceed that deadline. Access to genetic resources and
equitable benefit sharing (ABS) through a new disclosure requirement in
the patent laws (new disclosure requirement) is one of the pivotal issues
in the round for many developing countries. The majority of WTO
Member States are seeking to facilitate ABS through a new disclosure
requirement, without regard for its harmful potential. According to the
Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO), a disclosure requirement
that could block the grant of a patent for an otherwise eligible invention,
or could be used to invalidate that patent, (would) create unacceptable
* Dominic Keating is a Patent Attorney in the Office of International Relations at the USPTO. The
views contained herein are personal to the author, and do not necessarily represent those of the United
States Government. The author thanks Jayashree Watal of the World Trade Organization and Shakeel
Bhatti of the World Intellectual Property Organization for their assistance and support.
1 WTO Director-General Mike Moore's Informal End of the Year Message to Member Governments
and his proposals for action in 2002. See <www.wto.org/english/news-e/pres0le/pr265_e.htm>.
525

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