From the moment the first biotech patents were granted in 1980, the industry was hailed as a new frontier — uncharted territory where a new generation of scientist-inventors could reap the traditional rewards of innovation. But even as the gold rush began, critics as varied as scientists and human rights advocates declared that biotech’s new intellectual property frontier was already occupied. Claims of novelty and innovation as the basis for life patents, they said, disregarded the realities of not only nature, but also of research practices, democratic decision-making and global governance. [...] The title of an intriguing paper he wrote on the subject, “Acceptable Intellectual Property,” is a wordplay on the well-known concept of “acceptable risk” — that is, the level of risk a society considers acceptable, given existing social, economic and cultural conditions.