How Can Software Licensing Help Farmers in the Developing World?

Answer: By providing a model for licensing agreements that can protect the farmers’ intellectual property rights in the seed that they use. 

I recently posted on the problem of biopiracy — the appropriation of genetic resources from developing nations by pharmaceutical and other companies.  Similar concerns have been raised about agro-companies obtaining exclusive intellectual property rights in plant genetic resources that have been first developed and used by farmers in developing nations. 

Fortunately, 3L Ryann Beck has come up with a clever solution that involves adapting the open source licencing systems commonly used for computer software.  Under Ryann’s proposal, a nonprofit steward would obtain intellectual property rights in plant genetic materials on behalf of the farmers who developed them.  Packages of the seeds would then be labeled with a “copy-left” license that would preclude purchasers from obtaining enforceable intellectual property rights in the seeds or derivatives of the seeds. 

Ryann’s proposal is contained in a new paper on SSRN.  Her paper got a nice write-up on the IPKat blog a few days ago, and is forthcoming in the Arizona Journal of Environmental Law and Policy.  The abstract appears after the jump. 

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Truth in Googling: Is Unfair Competition the Answer?

In my freshman year of college, a long-time friend of mine and I decided to drive down to Chicago.  Shortly before heading to the Cadillac Palace to claim our seats for a comedy act performing there that night, my companion, being an Asian-food connoisseur, steered our walk downtown towards a Japanese restaurant in River North.   The interior design was stunning: dark, vaulting ceilings; a vibrantly colored fish tank as a focal point in the back; and an elliptical-shaped sushi bar in the center emanating the colors of the ocean.   I can also picture the black and red sign outlining the specials at the establishment’s door.  More vague, however, is my memory of one crucial detail about the restaurant: it’s name.

My inability to recall the name of that restaurant has prompted a flurry of Google searches on River North Japanese restaurants.   In the process, I have found many other places with likewise appealing aesthetics and succulent sushi, but my searches have returned no hits that appear to be the restaurant I was looking for.  The interior design of the River North establishment I found myself at distinguished it from every other restaurant Google has returned to me.  But those searches no less have provided me with other possible establishments awaiting my next trip to Chicago.

Now for a counterfactual.  How would my searches have turned out if I did remember the name of the restaurant? 

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Can New Patent Rules Help to Reduce Biopiracy?

Endowed with extraordinary genetic diversity, the world’s tropical rainforests have produced the raw material for many highly profitable pharmaceuticals.  Yet, the nations in which the rainforests are located — many of which are among the poorest in the world — often realize little economic benefit.  “Bioprospectors” have traditionally had little difficulty operating outside the legal regulation of source nations.  And, once biological materials are transported to the developed world, they may be made the basis for legally enforceable patents there.  Then, adding insult to injury — or perhaps more accurately, injury to insult — the patents may impair the ability of source nations to use their own genetic resources.  To critics, this dynamic — often labeled “biopiracy” — calls to mind the long tradition of exploitative north-south relationships going back to colonial days. 

The Convention on Biological Diversity aims to strengthen the position of source nations by requiring bioprospectors to obtain prior informed consent before using materials from other nations.  However, the treaty has a weak enforcement mechanism, and the United States is not even a party to it.

Responding to the weaknesses of the CBD, 3L Laura Grebe has an interesting new proposal to incorporate the prior informed consent concept into U.S. patent law.  Her proposal is described and defended in a new paper on SSRN entitled “Requiring Genetic Source Disclosure in the United States.”  In essence, Laura would require patent applicants to disclose the origin of their genetic materials and whether they obtained prior informed consent from the source nations.  Among other things, she hopes that U.S. reforms along these lines would become a model for other nations.

The abstract to Laura’s paper appears after the jump. 

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