European patent regulators have upheld an earlier rejection of a 13-year-old stem-cell patent filed by a UW-Madison affiliate, saying that inventions that exploit human embryos can’t be patented.
The board of appeals for the European Patent Office upheld the earlier decision on the patent request by the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation, which helps commercialize the university’s research. The rejection was based on a rule that forbids patenting of inventions that use or destroy human embryos for commercial purposes.