The Intellectual Property–Regulatory Complex

The combination of intellectual property and biosafety regimes may be preventing scientific solutions to global agricultural problems from reaching the people who need them – what can be done to overcome these barriers?

Emily Marden is counsel at Sidley Austin LLP in the food and drug regulatory practice in Palo Alto, California, and research associate in law at the University of British Columbia, where she teaches and directs research on genomics and innovation in agriculture and the life sciences. R. Nelson Godfrey is an associate in the Vancouver office of an intellectual property and technology law firm whose practice includes advising clients on litigation, compliance and regulatory matters, and licencing transactions. He has written extensively on issues relating to intellectual property and regulatory regimes and their interaction with research and knowledge translation, with particular emphasis on topics relating to genomics research and living modified organisms. Rachael Manion is a senior associate at a public policy consulting firm based in Ottawa that serves the health and life sciences sectors. She draws on her work as a regulatory lawyer for the federal Department of Justice, where she advised Health Canada on the application of existing statutory regimes to novel technologies and the development of science policy.

Contributors: Vernon Bachor, Hannes Dempewolf, Rochelle Cooper Dreyfuss, Regiane Garcia, Gregory Graff, Jeremy Hall, Sarah Hartley, Ronald J. Herring, Stelvia Matos, Chidi Oguamanam, Loren H. Rieseberg, Matthew R. Voell, and David Zilberman

The essays contained in this volume are best read together; as a collection they paint a full picture of the Complex as it relates to agricultural innovation. Even so, each part and chapter can stand alone. The collection achieves the goal of a focused discussion, but one that is appealing to a broad readership. Researchers, farmers, academics, innovators, or any socially conscious person will benefit from some part of the collection: agronomic innovations affect everyone. In the absence of an aversion to acronyms or abbreviations, this book is sure to please.

Graham Martin Dutfield, author of Intellectual Property Rights and the Life Science Industries: Past, Present and Future, 2nd ed.:
By treating intellectual property law and regional regulatory regimes as part of a whole system rather than as institutions to be treated separately, this book offers an original analytical approach to understanding the inadequate dissemination of socially beneficial agricultural gene technologies in both the developed and developing worlds.

Dianne Nicol, co-author of The Innovation Pool in Biotechnology: The Role of Patents in Facilitating Innovation:
By introducing readers to the Intellectual Property–Regulatory Complex, the essays in this book masterfully explain why it has proven so difficult to translate agricultural genomics research into socially beneficial projects.