Life Sciences and Intellectual Property: Technology Law Put to the Test

Life sciences have developed into one of the leading areas of technology. Being highly innovative and needing huge capital investments, the life sciences industry is heavily dependent on intellectual property rights. However, the function of intellectual property law has to be seen in connection with other areas of law like regulatory and liability law. The life sciences are a typical area of modern technology, challenging the law not only to foster innovation and facilitate technology transfer but also to insure safety and allocate risks. Interestingly, the traditional distribution of legal functions has become blurred in the area of life sciences: Regulatory law provides an incentive for developmental activities like clinical tests while patent law is increasingly used to discourage unwanted activities.