From conflicting narratives to legal conflicts: Patenting and irreconcilable differences on the idea of ‘biovalue’

Life sciences innovation has prompted both optimism and angst, and has been the subject of intensive economic and commercial activity. That activity has been supported by legal institutions and mechanisms in the form of intellectual property law deployments. However, recent jurisprudence has put the unaltered pursuit of commercial gain in the life sciences into some (slight) doubt, and has reinvigorated the so-called `life patents' debate. This paper considers these recent judicial developments, focusing in particular on how different narratives and approaches to biovalue have coloured litigant approaches. It goes on to consider briefly what these cases and the divergent world views represented within them might mean for the regulation of life science commercial practices moving forward.