The legal context of intellectual property rights and marine biotechnology

One of the most significant policy issues facing many governments as well as the marine biotechnology, on both a national and international level, is the ownership of biomaterials and bioprocesses. In recent years, scientists, policy-makers and legal theorists have struggled to develop a single stabilizing order that is sensitive to the plethora of relevant perspectives and values. A study was conducted to make a fundamental overview of the existing regimes of intellectual property accessible to the non-legal participants in the discussion, and to provide insight into legal traditions as they affect biotechnological research. The discussion also reviewed a number of the germinal points of legal tension and contention that have beset the industry.