A biological patent is a patent relating to an invention or discovery in biology. It can be a composition of matter, a method for obtaining or using one or more thereof, or a product combining such things. Natural biological substances themselves can be patented (apart from any associated process or usage) in the United States if they are sufficiently "isolated" from their naturally occurring states. Prominent historical examples of such patents on isolated products of nature include adrenaline, insulin, vitamin B12, and gene patents.
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Famous quotes containing the words biological and/or patent:
“If the most significant characteristic of man is the complex of biological needs he shares with all members of his species, then the best lives for the writer to observe are those in which the role of natural necessity is clearest, namely, the lives of the very poor.”
—W.H. (Wystan Hugh)
“This is the patent age of new inventions
For killing bodies, and for saving souls,
All propagated with the best intentions.”
—George Gordon Noel Byron (1788–1824)