INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY
IPRs in Agriculture: Implications for Seed Producers and Users
A conference sponsored by Farm Foundation, November 2-3, 2003
Impacts on Research in the Public Sector
W. F. Tracy
The goals of my presentation are to review the current situation in public plant breeding and plant germplasm relative to IPRs, present some benefits and challenges presented by IPRs and offer some suggestions to confront the most serious challenges. Based on my experience I will place a greater emphasis on land grant universities (LGUs) than on USDA-ARS. These two entities represent the vast majority of public plant breeding and germplasm efforts in the US and there are important and fundamental differences between the two. The USDA has continued its long-term policy of making research results and products as widely and freely available as possible. Generally USDA only applies intellectual property rights when they are required for the invention to become applied. On the other hand, since 1980 when the Bayh-Dole Act was passed, LGUs have actively asserted IPR, with, it seems, ever increasing vigor and aggressiveness. Since assertion of IP is the reigning paradigm in the LGUs, I will spend a brief amount of time discussing the benefits of IP and focus more intently on the challenges that IPRs present to the LGUs.
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