Life Sciences Intellectual Property Law Resources

Life sciences intellectual property law is a nuanced legal field that is as varied and far-reaching as the underlying technology itself. Although many aspects of intellectual property law are applied in the same manner across divergent technologies -- information technology, mechanical and electrical engineering, software and business methods, for example -- what has become apparent is that the life sciences are treated differently under the law.

Since the late 1970s, life sciences intellectual property law has largely evolved at the pace of the underlying research and development. However, differences in business strategies to bring life science technologies to market, as opposed to less regulated technologies, have created interesting differences in the application of international intellectual property laws to the distinct industries. The distinction between the two is easy to see -- electronics, mechanical and software technologies require relatively small upfront investments for innovations that often become obsolete after a few years on the market. Conversely, life sciences technologies often require hundreds of millions of dollars to commercialize therapeutic products and then many millions more, sometimes 15-20 years later, at the point when generic drug companies can enter the market.

Policy questions arise in debates where intellectual property laws are drafted or amended to broadly cover all techologies. It is perhaps more interesting to study divergent laws and policies as they are applied to convergence technologies -- technologies that combine hardware, software, biotechnologies, drug discovery, and diagnostics. How should laws and policies be applied to convergence technologies that are impacted by federal funding, FDA regulation, approval of products for human use, privacy issues, and other international issues? How should international standards originally drafted to apply to electronics and software be applied to healthcare technolgies, agriculture biotechnologies, and genetic information in those convergence technologies? Intellectual property attorney Kevin Buckley created this site to probe these questions.