Legal protection of biotechnological inventions. The European Parliament's perspective]

In 1996, the European Commission put forward a proposal for a Parliament and Concil Directive on the legal protection of biotechnology inventions. The article looks at vicissitudes which characterised the progress of the proposal in the Council and the European Parliament. The future directive will regulate the patentability of biological material, which is a particularly sensitive issue when the material is of human origin. The article also seeks to set the proposed directive in a wider context by referring to forthcoming international Convention Law on biotechnology and to the legal situation in Spain at present.