Policy Engagements and Blogs

Inscriptions: Law and Technology in Life

May 20, 2015

With innovation in the genetic engineering now being rewarded in the form of intellectual property rights, there are new things that are beginning to count as property and as objects of human invention – plant varieties, seeds, germplasm, genetic sequences, DNA and so on. While these are revealed through practices of biotechnology, law translates it into a capacity for monopolistic appropriation for biotech innovators. What instrumentalities of technology and law co-produce biotic property? These instrumentalities are examined in a two paper series by Rajshree Chandra. While the first paper seeks to lay out the work of technology in the creation of new biological artefacts, and consequently new economic spaces and property claims, the second paper seeks to examine the role of law in translating inventive claims as property claims.

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