Patent laws need to be understood in terms of “the culture and legal regime of Ravindra Bhat of Delhi’s High court during yesterday’s International Judges Panel. This means there is a “ constant discourse as to what ought to be patented” and “ an element of cultural relativism to these rights” he added.

Bhat said Article 27 of the TRIPs Agreement, which covers patentable subject matter, and the Doha Declaration show that the contrast between IP rights and human rights is “ a big issue”, He also said that patents had been granted for sandalwood and neem “ in stark contravention” of the Convention on Biological Diversity. “The balance has to be struck many times, in every generation,” said Bhat.

But Chief Judge Randall Rader of the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit argued that it is not the role of patent law to address these issues:” I would leave it to healthcare urles and others to regulate the balance that Mr. Bhat thinks should belong in the patent law.”

Rader added that in the US patentability is broad, with only three narrow exceptions in the statute. He said the recent Supreme Court Bilski cade had made it clear that the Federal Circuit’s machine-or-transformation test- which was “pretty broad” – was still too narrow to encompass all patentable inventions. He also defended the patenting of business methods: “ Google’s PageRank is a business method and that’s the basis of one of today’s most successful businesses.”

But Judge Sylvie Mandel of the Paris Court de cassation suggested that business methods should not be patentable, or at the very least should have a shorter patent term. She also argued that there should be exceptions to patentability where “ the collective interest outweighs that of inventors” including for certain therapeutic and diagnostic methods and for inventions derived from human embryos. Judge Klaus Grabinski of the German federal Court of Justice noted that a case on the latter point has been referred to the Court of Justice of the EU.

During the three-hour discussion, the panel of seven judges-including Luo Xia of China’s Supreme People’s Court, Ernst Numann of the Netherlands Supreme Court and Alain Giradet of the Paris Court of Appeals- also discussed issues relating to litigation, such as injunctions, witnesses and the role of the judge.

Rader said the panel was a sign that judges worldwide are committed to learning from each other and to helping those countries that do not meet international standards for protecting inventions:” We are really concerned about ensuring that we are serving you with an adequate judicial performance.”