A patent shall be granted for any invention having as a subject-matter a product or a process, in all technological fields, provided that it is new, involves an inventive step and is susceptible of industrial application.

Inventions in the field of biotechnology shall be patentable if they relate to:

a) biological material which is isolated from its natural environment or produced by any technical process, even if it previously occurred in nature;

b) plants or animals, if the technical feasibility of the invention is not limited to a particular plant variety or animal breed;

c) a microbiological process or other technical process or a product, other than a plant variety or animal breed, obtained by means of said process;

d) an element isolated from the human body or otherwise produced by a technical process, including the sequence or partial sequence of a gene, even if the structure of that element is identical to that of a natural element.