Intellectual Property in Biobanking

The article examines the intellectual property outcomes generated during the biobanking process and investigates issues regarding the ownership of rights to these outcomes by biobanking participants. In various legal systems, as a general rule, property rights to intellectual property outcomes derived from a donor’s biomaterials vest in the biobank and the researchers, rather than the donor. This approach is considered inequitable and detrimental to the future development of genetic technologies. The author proposes legal mechanisms to protect both the personal non-property rights and the property rights of donors within the biobanking process.