Patenting of microorganisms

Food Microbial Biodiversity and ?Microbes of Protected Origin?

“…Hence, it would be an exciting opportunity of systemic design (Kuehr, 2007), distributed economies (Johansson et al, 2005), ex situ microbial biodiversity conservation (Gams, 2004), and microbial commons regimen (Dijkshoorn et al, 2010) in the knowledge-based bio-economy landscapes. Indeed, the proposed approach is coherent with the existing microbial patenting framework (Sekar and Kandavel, 2004; Webber, 2006), in fact a multi-strain starter culture essentially satisfies the patentable criteria. Finally, highlighting the idea that microbial biodiversity belongs to the geographical attributes of fermented food, we propose a possible concrete role of microbial resources in ethnobiology and ethnomedicine, in accordance with the consideration that human food chain and microorganisms represent a case of co-evolution (Guerzoni, 2010).…”