Concord and conflicts blur science and invention

CONCORD and conflicts: Patent law and science systems have coexisted for nearly two centuries without losing their respective identities. However, a period of some adjustment in patent law, and to a lesser degree of science conventions, is inevitable as the "endless frontiers" of science converge with invention and commerce, contends Fred M. Cowan, a research biologist at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Chemical Defense in Maryland.