Biotechnology Piracy: Rethinking The International Protection Of Intellectual Property
University of Calgary Department of Economics Discussion Paper Series No. 2001-06
by James Gaisford, Robert Travydas, Jill E. Hobbs, William A. Kerr (University of Calgary)
INTRODUCTION
Commercial agriculture is in the midst of technological revolution. It is generally recognized that biotechnology has the potential to radically alter agricultural productivity and practices as well as to extend agriculture’s role beyond the traditional provision of food and fiber into areas such as human health and environmental enhancement (Klein, Kerr and Hobbs, 1998). As with any major change, it brings with it uncertainties and those who advocate caution (Perdikis, 2000). The technology is expected to have global applications as genetic modifications can be easily tailored to local agronomic and environmental conditions (Traxler, 1999). Unlike the previous plant and animal breeding advances in agriculture, the research and development of biotechnology is taking place primarily in the private sector (Frisvold, Sullivan and Raneses 1999). As a result, the expected return on private investment will become a major determinant of the extent to which the full potential of the technology will be realized. The expected return on private investment is, in part, a function of how well intellectual property is protected. This paper examines the likely efficacy of the institutions currently in place to provide international protection of intellectual property in agricultural biotechnology.
Thus far, the revolution in biotechnology has been confined to a limited number of commercial applications concentrated in a few crops. There are, however, a very large number of new applications in the advanced stages of development both for those species where commercial use is already widespread and for a wide range of new crops. This means that the product life cycle of any new application is likely to be short (Kerr, 1999). If the technological advantage over competitors is short-lived, profitability is crucially dependent on access to the widest possible market, including international
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