technologies in their research without permissions. Although patent owners have rarely
been concerned about academic research infringement in agriculture, in many instances
fundamental biomedical research has been challenged because of IP issues (Marshall
2002). In addition to IP considerations in basic research, projects carried out in public or
not-for-profit institutions that are targeted toward the development of crops for developing
country farmers must consider the IP inputs to the project.
Most researchers are still relatively unfamiliar with how to find, understand, and utilize
IP information, including published patents and patent applications. In addition, the ability
to obtain the rights to use patented technologies has remained uncertain even for projects
that have little commercial importance but, for example, may have large impacts in devel-
oping country agriculture. Several organizations have now emerged to address the relative
inaccessibility of IP information and to provide a framework to ensure that IP does not
block applications of agricultural biotechnology and, in particular, to facilitate projects
that can have broad humanitarian benefits.
Several public-sector and not-for-profit agricultural research institutions, including the
University of California, the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center, North Carolina State
University, Ohio State University, Boyce Thompson Institute for Plant Research,
Michigan State University, Cornell University, University of Wisconsin–Madison,
University of Florida, the USDA, Rutgers University, Texas A&M University, and
Purdue University, developed the Public Sector Intellectual Property Resource for
Agriculture (PIPRA; http://www.pipra.org)..) These institutions made a public commitment to par-
ticipate and promote strategies to collectively manage public-sector intellectual property in
support of both US and developing-country agriculture (Atkinson et al. 2003). This initial
founding group of PIPRA members has grown to over 45 institutional members in 13
countries, illustrating the widespread concern and interest in working collectively to
remove and avoid IP barriers that might slow development of new crops.
A number of strategies have been implemented to enhance FTO using public-sector IP
for agricultural biotechnology projects. For example, informed decisions regarding dissemi-
nation of new knowledge via open publication or protecting it with a patent are clearly
important, and FTO can be improved if public-sector institutions systematically consider
how, when, and if to use the patent system to support broad innovation (Boettiger and
Chi-Ham 2007). Even when using the patent system, PIPRA encourages its members to
reserve rights to use their newest and best technologies for humanitarian purposes, particu-
larly when they issue exclusive commercial licenses (Bennett 2007). For US agriculture, it
is also important to retain rights to use patented technologies in development of small spe-
cialty crops that are not currently within the commercial interests of large private-sector
companies. The anticipated benefits of a collective IP management regime are to enable
an effective assessment of FTO issues, overcome the fragmentation of public-sector IPR,
reestablish the necessary FTO in agricultural biotechnology for the public good, and
enhance private-sector interactions by more efficiently identifying collective commercial
licensing opportunities.
Among PIPRA’s core activities in developing a clearinghouse of public IP information
and analytical resources, it is also developing consolidated technology packages, or patent
pools, particularly in the area of enabling technologies for plant transformation. Patent
pools have been used effectively by companies to expedite the development and diffusion
of innovations that draw on many complementary technology components protected by
multiple patents that are owned by multiple technology developers. In PIPRA’s case, the
development of a patent pool that provides FTO for plant transformation that incorporates
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