Medicinal plants and biotechnologies, a booster for the new economy?

Genes are likely to play a major role in global economy in the 21st century au niveau de patenting some of them represent an enormous marketing potential. The battle for the appropriation of living organism is currently raging; it all started some twenty years ago when the U.S. Supreme Court granted a patent on a recombined micro-organism.In the face of this development, the countries in the South, holders of the larger part of the earth’s biodiversity, try to counteract vigorously this what they view as an act of piracy against the world’s natural heritage and ancestral knowledge, and claim for a share of the financial spin-offs.The distance between patenting natural resources and patenting human genes is very short and the U.S. Administration, together with some private corporations, have tried to cover it. Some recent victories in this respect suggest the pressure from public opinion will not in the long run be a match to counter the attacks launched by greedy multi-national companies.