navigating the patent maze

Yours truly, along with two agricultural economists (Phil Pardey of University of Minnesota and Bonwoo Koo of IFPRI), have published an article in this week’s Science journal.  If you have an account, you can view the article on-line.  Because journals hold the copyrights, I will ask for permission to post a copy here.

Summary:  Much of the debate on the implications of intellectual property (IP) for protecting plant varieties occurs in the absence of an understanding of the specifics of the rights in particular jurisdictions, a practical sense of the rights claimed or granted, and their evolution over time. Moreover, existing information highlights rich-country developments, with little attention to developing countries. This Policy Forum reviews the approaches to plant-related IP protection worldwide, with data on the applications of plant breeders’ rights, and discusses possible implications of IP protection for food production and human health.

The cambia IP site has posted a new white paper (patent landscape analysis) on “Resistance to Phosphinothricin” as well as a new tutorial called “Can IP rights protect plants?“.

European Union countries are supposed to have a uniform law concerning biotechnology inventions, including the patenting of plant inventions. The Directive is known as 98/44/EC. Even though the deadline for implementation has passed, so far, only thirteen Member States have thus far implemented the Directive: Greece, Sweden, Slovakia, Malta, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Spain, Denmark, Ireland, the United Kingdom, Portugal and Finland.

Effective 1 March 2004, Poland will become a member of the European Patent Office. The 28 member countries will then consist of:

Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Monaco, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey and the United Kingdom.