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Australia told to review patent laws

Australia has been warned to carefully review the way its patent laws cover genetic material or it could be cut out of medical tests and future research.

A conference in Canberra has been told Australia can benefit from the lessons learnt in the UK.

British law researcher Dr Margaret Llewelyn outlined how patent laws protecting the discovery of gene sequences were scrutinised in the UK.

She says health officials were forced to negotiate for licenses to cover testing for breast cancer genes and also found any further research on the specific genes was limited.

"The main issue is the lack of understanding of what you can do with material which is protected by a patent," she said.

Professor Anne Finlay from the Law Reform Commission says the results in the UK will help shape the Australian response.

"They have a research use, or experimental use exemption in their legislation, and we don't have one," she said.

"Would it be beneficial to have one and how would we fashion its scope."

A national discussion paper on the issue will be released in February.

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