Undercover bio-patenting

LEADING environmental Ncos and public interest groups in Europe, persistently rooting against the patenting of genes and living organisms, are now seething with indignation against the European Patent Office (EPO). The organisation has gone ahead and presented a draft proposal at a forum in Munich in September end, claiming that a majority of the EPO users favoured "scrapping" a clause from the 1973 European Patent Convention (Lpc) which renders plants and animal varieties as non-patentable.

The anti-patenting camp is furious over the distribution of the draft only to selected groups like patent lawyers and industry representatives. The Munich hearing was also targeted specifically at those whom the anti-patent campaigners allege, were anyway inclined to accept the council's viewpoint. No Veople's groups got even a whiff of it; they were neither consulted about the document, nor were they invited to the Munich meeting.

The draft was drawn up by the Epo's administrative council - a body comprising representatives of the countries signatory to the EPC. It tackled two main problems facing the EPO: the high cost of European patents and more importantly, the public controversy over gene patenting. Only restricted groups were invited to comment.

"In matters of public interest, it will certainly not do to claim that you have held a public meeting when so many groups were excluded," fumes David Shapiro, executive secretary of the London-based Nuffield Council on Bioethics. He was angry about the statemerit which claimed that the European nations were now more positively inclined towards animal and plant genes patenting.

It does not produce any supporting evidence, and certainly does not reflect public opinion, declares Shapiro. He points out that early 1995, the Europe Parliament had actually voted against gene patents.

EPO officials contend that the cam paigners are being unnecessarily fussy The Munich forum was primarily n" organised to get a sense from the 02.4 groups on how patenting costs can kre reduced, not to consider the paten bility of biotechnology producta. explains Gerald Weiss, head of the administrative council.

But Sue Mayer of Greenpeace International - a Shapiro supporter who has been actively involved in the movement against patenting for a long time, has let off a fullisade of cn' "It is foolish to restrict the debate, when the Fpo should be trying to understand public concern (about patenting of life forms)," she rages.

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