Technology and Innovation: Why are patents for chemicals the least controversial?

Recent weeks have seen a continuation of policy debates surrounding patents. The Australian challenge to gene patents by Cancer Voices Australia, against the patentability of the BRCA2 gene mutation, is now the subject of an appeal to the Full Court of the Federal Court after an initial claim of invalidity was dismissed. In New Zealand, opponents of software patents had a victory with the exclusion of patentability of software as such, although software remains patentable as part of a broader invention. In India and certain other developing countries, battles continue over restrictions on the patentability of pharmaceutical inventions that are new uses of known substances, and other inventions commonly dismissed as mere attempts at evergreening to extend a patent monopoly.