...The symposium on public sector IP management in the life sciences, held at the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) [Geneva, December 15, 2009] aimed at harvesting practical experiences to help policymakers develop a structured perspective on the policy question raised by public interest IP management, said Antony Taubman of WIPO.
In many countries there is a debate on how to manage publicly funded intellectual property, as a balance between private interests and the broader public interest must be reached....
The classical perspective of IP gives two different approaches: the public sector approach which does not make use of the market and simply publishes research to the public domain, and the private sector model in which market interest and technology is licensed in an exclusive way. However, according to Taubman, this was never a complete picture, and the emerging practice shows that between those opposite poles there is a range of different options like licensing strategies, public-private partnerships and patent pooling structures....
Some countries have changed their legislation to address the issue. In South Africa, a new law on the managing of publicly funded IP just came into effect in January....
A policy framework was subsequently developed and adopted by the Parliament. The framework created, among other things, an obligation for recipients of public funding research to disclose all IP coming out of that research. It also stated that the government should secure the IP if the institution did not. In certain cases, some patents can be secured to protect public interest and may not be licensed on commercial terms....
Activists however think that this new legislation might have a negative impact on South African research. Andrew Rens, intellectual property fellow for the Shuttleworth Foundation wrote in a post this week that donor organisations, for example, might be reluctant to fund research in South Africa as they often prefer research results to be open. Also, universities now have commercial interest in the granting of patent, which could create a conflict of interest when South Africa moves to an examination system for patents and needs experts to evaluate research, he said.
In Germany, a “professor’s privilege” was introduced into the legislation, said Wolf-Michael Catenhusen, former state secretary of the German federal ministry of education and research. Until 2002, a German professor was automatically owner of all IP rights on his research results, he said.
In 2002, however, there was a revision of the “employee invention law” which adopted the principles of the US Bayh-Dole act of 1980 [pdf], which puts on obligation on universities to disclose invention to the federal funding agency . “From that date, German universities got the right to patent inventions of members of the university,” said Catenhusen....“Fields which have the chance to get patents and to commercialise them are on the top agenda of research funding priorities, not only in Germany but in many industrialised countries,” he said.
Some researchers have voiced concerns about such priorities in research funding impending freedom of research, but Catenhusen argued that a mixed system of research funding consisting of quality oriented basic research and innovation oriented programme research funding is a good instrument to guarantee the freedom of research....
Developed in the early 1980s, the International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (ICGEB) aims at advancing knowledge of the developing world in fields such as biomedicine, crop improvement and biopharmaceuticals through research and training, according to Decio Ripandelli of the ICGEB.
The ICGEB is an international institution owned by member countries. With 59 full member states, all developing countries, ICGEB, harbours scientists from over 50 countries in its laboratories. The centre has published 1,700 international peer reviewed publications and filed 55 patents.
The institution patents innovations discovered by its researchers within the context of a “social contract,” under which patents act as an incentive and an encouragement for further innovation, while society and taxpayers get public disclosure of the invention, said Ripandelli. Most developing countries do not have the culture or capability for proper management of IP, he said....
However, the ICGEB’s policy guidelines on patents and other IP rights make it clear that the technology should remain available. The results emanating from the institution’s laboratories, Ripandelli said, should “be granted to all developing countries even if they are not members of our centre.”
PS: Also see our recent posts on the new tech tech transfer laws in South Africa and India.
Posted by
Peter Suber at 1/18/2009 12:56:00 PM.
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
I recommend the OA tracking project (OATP) as the best way to stay on top of new OA developments. You can read the OATP feed on a blog-like web page or subscribe to it by RSS, email, or Twitter. You can also help build the feed by tagging new developments you encounter.
