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Among one of the first topics related to biotech innovation is the ethics of the practice. Many of the developed nations have specifically prevented ability to patent practices that are often seen as genetic engineering of humans, and even that of animals. The idea behind preventing patents from being issued for this reason is that if there is no mechanism to protect the investment of time and energy into these technologies that are seen as taboo and against the desires of the public, then there will be no active investments into these new technologies. Yet even without the ability to patent certain technologies, there are still investments being made into the grey areas, requiring expertise and deft action from regulators to ensure that the products from the biotech industry are in compliance with these ethical boundaries. Often the standard that is used to measure whether a given product should be able to be patented is that if the product is particularly beneficial to the public and whether it is moral to do so. Because of overlapping regulations at the WTO level, each nation tends to honor the regulations of another. This can certainly become complicated when a regulation of morals are to be considered as equal by another jurisdiction. Thankfully for the basis of biotech regulation, the genetic modification of the human genome is considered equally amoral across the international community. However when it comes to the very specifics of where the boundary is, there is certainly much room for different interpretation by the constituent nations.
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