Legal protection of biotechnological inventions

The biotechnology sector is taking its place in the world economy as an important sector which is growing rapidly in fields such as medicine, agriculture and animal husbandry, medicine, industry and environment. Biotechnological developments, which have a direct effect on human life and eco-system in many areas, have increased the economic value of the inventions related to them and have led to the emergence of regulations and court decisions that sometimes push the boundaries of patent law. In this context, the Eropean Union Directive on the Legal Protection of Biotechnological Inventions 98/44 / EC of July 6, 1998, which has been adopted after the challenging stages, has caused many debates in both the harmonization efforts of the member states and the judiciary and the doctrine, and these discussions have not yet been addressed. The fact that there is no other comprehensive and detailed legal document on the subject other than the EU Directive raises the importance of the Directive and makes it the focus of criticisms. Aside from the important ethical aspect of the issue, it is noteworthy that there are problems in terms of patent law technics. Supreme Court decisions, expert group reports, different country practices and literature on the subject show that discussions will continue at a great pace for a longer period. The implementation of the provisions of the Directive into the EPC Implementing Regulations, in which the uniformity among member states have not been ensured by the EU despite the harmonization efforts, revealed differences in the law applicable to the Erupean patent and the national patent, has resulted things to become inextricable. As for Türkiye, Customs Union membership and candidate status for EU is being continued, thus being a party to the European Patent Convention, it has experienced its share of turmoil in the EU. Being in the status of developing countries, Türkiye, with the aim to support the national patents and researchers has enacted the new Industrial Property Law in some aspects not in line with the regulations of the Directive but, the European Patent Convention, which will apply to the European patent, as dictated by the Directive provisions of the Implementing Rules, unfortunately, caused in our country to European patents to be advantageous from national patents. In this context, it would be appropriate to envisage the measures taken by some EU and/or EPC member states, in order to eliminate this disadvantage by applying a similar legal technique. Keywords: Biotechnology, Patent, Invention, Biotechnological Invention, Patent Rights.