May 2009 Archives

IP Watch reports that agreement was reached at the end of a five-year process to devise a plan for boosting research and development on and access to drugs needed by developing countries.

As per IP watch post dated 22^nd Mar, 2009:

Applause broke out at the annual World Health Assembly Friday as agreement was reached at the end of a five-year process to devise a plan for boosting research and development on and access to drugs needed by developing countries. Now with the full assembly's approval, the focus turns to five-year implementation and as-yet unclear ways to pay for it.

"You have found some elegant ways forward after many years, and many intense hours of negotiation, consensus building, and compromise," World Health Organization Director General Margaret Chan told the closing plenary.

"This is a critical resolution, and we have come a long way to the place we are today," committee meeting Chair Stephen McKernan of New Zealand said at the conclusion. The agreement reached at committee level was approved by the full assembly later on Friday, according to sources.

Agreement in committee was reached after a group of developing countries eager to discuss a possible treaty on biomedical R&D dropped a demand to include the WHO as a stakeholder in discussions about the treaty (IPW, WHO, 21 May 2009).

The approved global strategy and plan of action [pdf] on public health, innovation and intellectual property aims by 2015 to train over 500,000 R&D workers, improve research infrastructure, national capacity and technology transfer, and lead to numerous other outcomes such as creating 10 public access compound libraries and 35 new health products (vaccines, diagnostics and medicines).

The WHO legal counsel gave an opinion to the committee that dropping the WHO as a stakeholder would not prejudice the R&D treaty issue as it is addressed in a separate expert working group on financing to continue deliberations this year under a mandate from the 2008 assembly. Those proposals are still on the table and could go the assembly next year, the counsel said. It also would not prevent any member state from making any proposals to the Executive Board as is standard WHO process. But that process does not guarantee any proposal will be accepted, the counsel noted.

To read the complete post from IP watch click here.

This post comes from our friends on SpicyIP blog and looks into the IP management in agricultural research in India. To read the post from SpicyIP blog click here.

 

The public-funded agricultural research system in India is gradually trying to supplement its "soft" defence against misuse of IP (e.g., through placing assets in the public domain through disclosure) with more aggressive IP protection strategy, in keeping with evolving national and international policy. But IP management in agricultural research in the country continues to be challenged by constraints of scale, human resource, and awareness, among other things. This directly impacts the system's ability to strategically leverage its traditional advantage of being a region rich in agri-biodiversity.

These, and other issues, have been brought to light in an fascinating case study on the Intellectual Property Management Regime in the Indian National Agricultural Research Systems, authored by Dr Kalpana Sastry of the National Academy of Agricultural Research Management (NAARM). This study forms part of a compilation of four such cases on the Institutionalisation of IP Management in Agricultural Research Institutions in Developing Countries brought out by the Central Advisory Service on Intellectual Property (CAS-IP). (Dr Sastry, some of you may recall, is also the Course Director of the PG Diploma on IP and Technology Management in Agriculture, which was profiled some time ago on the blog.)

The paper (which you can read/download here) looks at four countries (India, Tanzania, Nigeria and Kenya), but for this post, I draw your attention to the issues raised in the India study, the stated purpose of which is to "understand and explore modalities to improve the effectiveness of the IP management and technology transfer guidelines in agriculture based public sector institutions in India".

The study itself focuses on the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) system, for reasons of its being the nodal agency for agri-research in India. Since 2006, ICAR has been operating with a three-tier decentralised IP management structure, which is applicable to all the organisations that form part of the National Agricultural Research System (NARS) (see image). Through a micro-study of two institutes within this structure, the study brings out characteristics, challenges and opportunities that are present for successfully managing a potentially rich portfolio.

Two key IP management practices in ICAR emerge:

• Plant variety registration and protection has been prioritised for extant varieties of notified crops (subject to meeting conditions of notification) under the Protection of Plant Varieties and Farmers' Rights Act.
• ICAR guidelines also encourage institutes to deposit samples/resoures at the National Bureaus for Genetic resources, including Plants, Animals, Fish and Microorganisms, primarily for reasons of public interest.

Clearly, the research system is still coming to terms with utilising mainstream IPRs. This is something that will dominate discussion in the months to come with resumed activity on the Protection and Utilisation of Public Funded IP Bill, and tangible results have a while to present themselves.

Of more interest is the issues that need attention and intervention, identified through detailed questionnaires set for the institutions under scrutiny. This list is culled from the case study itself, and some of these are generic and/or well-established, but readers are welcome to highlight other distinctive issues in agri-IP-management that may be of relevance here:

• Lack of awareness, knowledge and training among scientists. One responding institute said that only *two* scientists had ever attended awareness programmes at ICAR!
• Speedier processes for registering extant varieties, considering that this is a policy priority for ICAR.
• Streamlining systems to test for Distinctiveness, Uniformity and Stability (DUS) for registering plant varieties, and subsequent filing procedures. At present, responsibility/accountability issues have led to duplicate filings, which eat up time and other resources.
• Building, and learning how to build, stronger IP portfolios.
• Exhaustively inventorise, audit and value IP, which is made available through a transparent information system.
• Assessing freedom to operate.
• Systematise agreements with external collaborators and sponsoring agencies.

There remains some cloud over fundamental questions surrounding IP protection - of how the public sector as a major holder of IP in agriculture would affect access to resources, and other key public interest matters. Again, this demonstrates the problem of lack of engagement and discussion with scientists and participants in the system, something that has been highlighted time and again by those tracking scientific research in India.

Although there is the immense caveat that this case study comes from within the ICAR system itself, it does serve as an insight into the workings of this giant elephant that is Indian agricultural research, which could come from nowhere else but from within. More than anything else, it offers an opportunity for policymakers in ICAR to "listen" to its own people, and initiate immediate reforms in its internal IP management to minimise subsequent criticism from the outside.

The UK Intellectual Property Office has compiled a nanotechnology patent landscape for the UK. This reports on UK patent data and reflects on UK innovation in the field of nanotechnology.

 

These yield the following observations in respect of UK innovation:

 

• UK strong overall in bionanotechnology
• Commercial organisations prolific in medical and cosmetic applications
• Universities strong in science-base research in nanostructures, physics and electrical applications including scanning probes, light guides, semiconductors and magnets
• Most prolific commercial patents closely related to densely patented (established) technology sectors
• University patents spread very broadly across all sectors and tend to populate underrepresented sectors supporting research bias

 

It was noted that whilst recent declines in nanotechnology patenting may be attributable to patent publication delays, evidence in university patenting, and the GB patent bias in the dataset suggested that the decline may be actual. If so, nanotechnology patent activity would seem to have peaked in 2002.

 

Under technology breakdown, medical preparation including targeted drug delivery and antibody directed enzyme therapy is seen to decline since prolific activity in the early 1990s. On the other hand, cyclodextrins and medicinal preparations involving nanoparticles and/or nanocapsules is recently resurgent. Activity in nanostructures and physics/electrical fields is ongoing and may be attributable to recent university research pursuing these technologies.

 

The UK is underrepresented in nanotoxicity, but this appears to be a growth area, peaking recently in 2005.

 

Patent portfolio (holdings) analysis suggests, despite the bias of patents in established areas assigned to commercial organisations, that new entrants and exploratory research still form a significant part of the UK nanotechnology landscape; 49% of patents are held within portfolios of less than 20 nanotechnology patents.

 

Collaborative activity between applicants is noted although inventor collaborations are more prolific. Universities are seen to collaborate widely suggesting a high degree of technology transfer and/or spin out.

 

Patents held by non-commercial organisations make up 33% of the dataset. This suggests a significant research and development activity-base with continuing commercialisation and applications development.

The full report is available for download here.

We have been working with the ipHandbook Blog for quite sometime now and regard the ipHandbook as a great contribution to IP World. There have been recent improvements and expansion of the online resource. The following is a open letter to the users of the resource and the IP professionals in general from Dr. Anatole Krattiger and the editors of ipHandbook.

 

Dear Colleagues:

Major improvements and expansions to the ipHandbook website have just been launched thanks to a new collaboration with the Concept Foundation and funding by the Rockefeller Foundation. The improvements include:

1. Special video presentations, downloadable with synchronized slides, prepared by the ipHandbook community. Includes a unique & growing list of links to other relevant videos.
2. An exclusive list of distance learning courses, including one prepared by and for the ipHandbook community in collaboration with UNIDO's e-Biosafety Training Programme
3. Follow us on Twitter for regular updates or use the new RSS Feeds on selected pages (click here to read our Twitter strategy).
4. Improved navigation with pull-down menus.
5. Integrated Google translation on each page.
6. Improved search functions.
7. The full content now shared under a Creative Commons license.
8. An updated and expanded Resources section (more updates to follow soon).
9. A vibrant blog on current IP topics, including a list of over 60 IP related blogs by third parties.
10. Translation by PIPRA of 31 chapters into Vietnamese. Everyone is encouraged to request a royalty-free license to translate individual chapters or the executive guide into other languages.

Click here to download the full press release.

Over the next 6 months, we will gradually update and expand patent search tools, information resources, publications, sample agreements and much more. Most importantly, however, we are aiming at establishing a virtual global network of IP and innovation managers, policymakers, scientists and R&D leaders. We are in the process of developing interactive tools, allowing people from around the wrld to interact and build a social IP network. Specific features to become available include:

-          Networking features (using LinkedIn), capitalizing on the Web 2.0 possibilities.

-          Discussion boards, including the possibility for users to upload references, comments, upcoming events and links, thus allowing the content to be expanded and remain current.

-          An index of relevant statutory protection and licensing regulations in selected countries.

-          The addition of additional topics and resources, including Wiki-type features on such topics as "knowledge governance" (or what lies beyond IP), "global access strategies" and more.

Concept Foundation is an international not-for-profit organization and one of the oldest Product Development Partnerships (PDPs), having been established under a collaborative agreement with WHO in 1989. It has extensive experience in the development to partnerships with pharmaceutical manufacturers in developing countries and in ensuring access of products of assured quality to lower and middle income countries. MIHR was established by the Rockefeller Foundation in 2003.  After a period of independent operation in Oxford, UK, it merged its programs with the Concept Foundation and is now a program of the Foundation.  Continuing support for MIHR activities is provided by the Rockefeller Foundation.

Please visit www.ipHandbook.org and share this message and attachment with your colleagues. And do stay tuned and follow us on Twitter to be updated in real-time on new features and important developments.

 

Best regards,

Anatole Krattiger and the editors of www.ipHandbook.org