Agency - Uses of Patents

In the continuation of its database on the use of property, which has been operated on the Internet for several years and which sees itself as an 'Archive for civil disobedience', the workshop led by the Belgian artist and activist Kobe Matthys will develop structures and representations of opposing models of the idea of copyright and intellectual property.

Against the background of current debates on the application of biotechnologies in agriculture, which are particularly acute in Saxony-Anhalt, the workshop focuses on the side effects of the construction of intellectual property based on the legal distinction between nature and culture. Examples from jurisprudence related to the use of patents on 'life' will be discussed as well as the legal argumentation allowing the patenting of DNA compositions, diagnostic gene testing kits, monoclonal antibodies and transgenic animals.