I. INTRODUCTION In a civilized society, property plays a big role in defining the social relations. As all institutions imply relations between individuals, the institution of property also regulates the relation between individuals apart from ascertaining their relation with reference to objects. Ownership is one such relation between individuals in respect of use of things, which carries a right to use a definite thing for more or less definite purposes and for definite or indefinite time. This exclusive right forbids all other persons to interfere with the owner in the exercise of his right in respect of the thing owned, up to the point at which the limits of that right are prescribed by law.1 Right to property is a unique type of right to a thing or good against the world i.e., a right in rem. In fact the rem character of property as a legal and economic institution needs to be understood in order to understand the character and consequences of such an institution. Property rights historically have been regarded as in rem. In other words, property rights attach to persons a particular relationship to something and confer 1 Golaknath vs. State of Punjab, AIR 1967 SC 1643 at p. 1709 2 PATENTING OF BIOTECHNOLOGICAL INVENTIONS on those persons the right to exclude a large and indefinite class of other persons (the world) from the thing. William Blackstone, for instance,