On 20th April 2023, we were delighted to host the public launch event for the European Research Council (ERC) funded PatentsInHumans project in Maynooth University. Dr Fergus Ryan (Head of the School of Law and Criminology) offered a welcome address and introductory remarks on the evening. Following this, Professor Aisling McMahon introduced the ERC PatentsInHumans project and outlined the project’s research objective namely, to develop a comprehensive understanding of the potential bioethical issues posed by patents on technologies related to the human body, and to understand to what extent such bioethical issues are - or could be further - considered within European patent grant and licensing decision-making. This was followed by presentations from Professor Susi Geiger (UCD) and Dr Christine Kelly (UCD) who provided reflections on the potential bioethical and societal implications of how such patents are granted and used over health-related technologies based on insights from their respective fields, of health care markets and public health. In the second half of the event, Professor Jorge Contreras (University of Utah) delivered a keynote lecture on “The Civil Rights Case Against Gene Patents in America” based on his recent book, The Genome Defence: Inside the Epic Legal Battle to Determine who owns your DNA (NY: Hachette/Algonquin, 2021).
The public launch event was attended by a range of attendees, including, members of the public, students and academics working in disciplines (including law, biology, political science and business), practising lawyers, and technology transfer specialists. We would like to gratefully acknowledge the support of the European Research Council in funding this project. We are also very grateful for the support of the School of Law and Criminology, Maynooth University which co-funded the reception event following this project launch event, and we would also like to acknowledge support of the ALL Institute in Maynooth University which co-hosts the project alongside the School of Law and Criminology.
This report offers a summary of the presentations at the launch event and is available here.
You can find out more about our project and future activities and events by visiting our website: www.patentsinhumans.eu .