ETC Group Releases New Report on Nanotechnology: Nanotech's Second Nature Pate

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Wed, 15 Jun 2005 22:12:08 -0000

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ETC Group: Nanotech's " Second Nature " Patents

 

 

 

ETC Group

News Release

16 June 2005

www.etcgroup.org

 

 

ETC Group Releases New Report on Nanotechnology and Intellectual

Property:

 

Nanotech's " Second Nature " Patents

 

 

The full text of the 36-page report is available here:

http://www.etcgroup.org/article.asp?newsid=509

 

Twenty-five years after the biotech industry got the green light to

patent life, nanotech goes after the building blocks of life.

 

On the 25th anniversary of Diamond vs. Chakrabarty,* the US Supreme

Court's landmark decision (June 16, 1980) that opened the floodgates to

the patenting of living organisms, ETC Group releases a new report,

" Nanotech's 'Second Nature' Patents. "

 

Since Chakrabarty, the biotech industry has worked hand-in-hand with

governments to allow for the patenting of all biological products - the

first monopoly grab over life. Chakrabarty set the stage for today's

nanotechnology patents, where the reach of exclusive monopoly is not

just on life - but the building blocks of life - nanotech's 'second

nature' patents, " explains Hope Shand, Research Director of ETC Group.

 

ETC Group's new report examines current trends in intellectual property

and nanotechnology and the implications for the developing world.

Nanotechnology refers to the manipulation of matter at the scale of

atoms and molecules, where size is measured in billionths of meters.

 

The world's largest transnationals, leading academic labs and nanotech

start-ups are all racing to win monopoly control of tiny tech's

colossal market. " Control and ownership of nanotech is a vital issue

for all governments and civil society because nanomaterials and

processes can be applied to virtually any manufactured good across all

industry sectors, " said Kathy Jo Wetter of ETC Group. " Patents are

being granted that cut across multiple industry sectors - a single

nano-scale innovation may span pharma, food, electronics and materials

alike, " continues Wetter. The US National Science Foundation predicts

that nanotechnology will capture a $1 trillion dollar market within six

or seven years.

 

ETC Group finds that breathtakingly broad nanotech patents have been

granted that cut across multiple industry sectors and include sweeping

claims on entire areas of the Periodic Table. Although industry

analysts assert that nanotechnology is in its infancy, " patent

thickets " on fundamental nano-scale materials, tools and processes are

already creating thorny barriers for would-be innovators. Claims are

often broad, overlapping and conflicting - a scenario ripe for massive

patent litigation battles in the future.

 

ETC Group's report provides case studies of patent activity involving

four of nanotech's hottest and potentially most lucrative nanomaterials

and one essential tool: carbon nanotubes; inorganic nanostructures;

quantum dots; dendrimers; scanning probe microscopes.

 

G8: Downsizing Development? When the G8 Summit meets in Scotland next

month, the leaders of the world's most powerful countries will unveil a

" Pro-Poor Science " strategy to turn new technologies like nanotech into

a silver bullet for social injustice.

 

" Despite rosy predictions that nanotech will provide a technical fix

for hunger, disease and the environment, the extraordinary pace of

nanotech patenting suggests that developing nations will participate

primarily via royalty payments, " said Pat Mooney, Executive Director of

ETC Group. " In a world dominated by proprietary science, researchers in

the global South are likely to find that participation in the nanotech

revolution is highly restricted by patent tollbooths, obliging them to

pay royalties and licensing fees to gain access, " said Mooney.

 

" Ultimately, nanotech will profoundly affect the South's economy,

regardless of its handling of intellectual property, " explains Silvia

Ribeiro from ETC Group's Mexico City office. " Nano-scale technologies

will revolutionize the way that new materials are designed and

manufactured - changes that could turn commodity markets upside-down

and make geography, raw materials, even labour, irrelevant. Nanotech

underpins a new strategic platform for global control of materials,

food, agriculture and health, and patent monopoly is a powerful tool

for realizing that strategy, " said Ribeiro.

 

Many South nations are still grappling with unresolved controversies

over biotechnology, but by the end of this year, ready or not, even the

world's " least developed " nations who are members of the World Trade

Organization will be obligated by its Trade-Related Aspects of

Intellectual Property (WTO-TRIPs) to evaluate and enforce nanotech

patents.

 

Lessons learned from Diamond v. Chakrabarty: Despite all the hype about

Mr. Chakrabarty's oil-eating microbe and how it would gobble up oil

spills, the patented microorganism never worked. Instead of curing

environmental ills, the biotech industry has introduced its own

contamination problems - unwanted gene flow from genetically modified

crops, a particularly serious problem for centres of genetic diversity

in the developing world.

 

Unlike 25 years ago, today's nanotech-related patents have not required

major rule changes. As a result, many governments are unaware of the

nanotech patent rush. ETC Group recommends that the World Intellectual

Property Organization (WIPO) initiate a global suspension of patent

approvals related to nanotechnology until South governments and

countries-in-transition can undertake a full evaluation of their

impacts, and until social movements can cooperate with WIPO, the Food

and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the United Nations Conference on

Trade and Development (UNCTAD) to examine the impact of

nanotech-related intellectual property on monopoly practices,

technology transfer and trade.

 

The full text of the 36-page report is available for downloading,

free-of-charge,

on the ETC Group website:

http://www.etcgroup.org/article.asp?newsid=509

 

 

For more information:

 

Hope Shand: hope Carrboro, NC (USA) +1 919 960-5767

Pat Mooney: etc Ottawa, ON (Canada) +1 613 241-2267

Kathy Jo Wetter: kjo Carrboro, NC (USA) +1 919 960-5223

Silvia Ribeiro: silvia Mexico City (Mexico) +52 5555

632664

Jim Thomas: jim Oxford (UK) +44 7752 106806

 

*Note to Editors: In 1971, Ananda Chakrabarty, an employee of General

Electric, applied for a patent on a genetically modified oil-eating

microbe. The US Patent & Trademark Office rejected his patent

application on the grounds that animate life forms were not patentable.

On June 16, 1980 by a narrow 5-4 margin, the US Supreme Court ruled

that Chakrabarty's oil-eating microbe was not a product of nature;

living organisms could be seen as human made inventions and are

therefore patentable subject matter.

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