Случај Бристл (Brüstle) против Гринписа - правна заштита биотехнолошких изума у Европској унији
The Brüstle v. Greenpeace case - legal protection of biotechnological inventions in the European Union

Summary/Abstract: It is well known that the EU is primarily market-oriented; however, some EU regulations indirectly deal with ethical issues. Usually, ethical issues are left outside of EU law, but if not, they are included in a very general and vague manner, leaving freedom for detailed regulation within national laws. In the case of Brüstle against Greenpeace, the Court made an exception to this approach, in a manner which disregarded the aforementioned tradition of respecting differences among the Member States. The main subject in the case of Brüstle against Greenpeace was the interpretation of the Parliament and the Council’s Directive 98/44/CE on the legal protection of biotechnological inventions in the light of embryonic stem cells based inventions. Despite the lack of consensus concerning legal status of an embryo and definitions of the embryo which are accepted among the Member States, the Court was of the opinion that it was its role to decide on which embryo definition was acceptable in the EU in the context of the biotechnological inventions patentability. This article examines the Council’s Directive 98/44/CE primarily in the context of stem cell patenting, the Brüstle decision, the criticism of this decision, and in brief, relevant laws in Serbia.

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