About

New IP

The era of Old IP had multiple flaws. It failed to recognize that knowledge leads best to new products and services if shared. It wrongly assumed that companies obtain IP to protect their inventions from being copied rather than to trade or enhance their reputations. It wrongly presumed that if a company has a patent right it could actually use it to prevent others from copying the invention. It exaggerated the importance of patents; other impediments – such as income tax rules, regulations and political and cultural understanding – may often be more important. Research also showed that it was unclear whether patents actually increase inventiveness and dissemination. And last, Old IP failed to come to grips with the reality of public health and public health care systems.

Because of these flaws, the era of Old IP is drawing to a close. However, the twilight of Old IP does not signal the end of the importance of IP. We are entering a New IP era which focuses on granting the right amount of IP and better use of it through cooperation and collaboration so that knowledge gets to those who need it most to produce and disseminate new products and services.

In order to make the transition to New IP the following is needed:

  • Mechanisms to build and sustain trust among the various stakeholders
  • Ensuring better communication among stakeholders
  • Developing new models that stress collaboration
  • Enriching scientific infrastructure (including human and social capital) in developing countries
  • Challenging myths of how IP contributes to innovation
  • Abandoning “just so” stories on intellectual property and innovation in favour of hard fact

The International Expert Group on Biotechnology, Innovation and Intellectual Property agreed on the following actions to be taken by governments, patent offices and universities and the scientific community:

1. GOVERNMENTS SHOULD TAKE THE LEAD ON THE FOLLOWING ACTIVITIES:

1.1. They should pay at least as much attention to the environment in which innovation takes place – including regulation of the health and environmental effects of biotechnology, the independence of the judicial system, laboratory facilities, training and marketplace regulation – as they do to IP.

1.2. They should encourage, financially and intellectually, the creation of independent trust builders to mediate disputes and encourage dialogue between actors and provide training, particularly to lower income countries.

1.3. They should support independent organisations to engage indigenous and local communities at a grass-roots level in training on and policy development in relation to IP, the protection of indigenous knowledge and methods to share that knowledge while respecting the rights and autonomy of those peoples.

1.4. They should standardize the collection of important science and technology measures to permit comparisons of different models of managing IP.

1.5. Governments with public health care systems should work with industry, funding bodies and universities to develop a PPP to manage health-related data to encourage collaborations and innovation.

1.6. Government funding agencies should target the development of novel and sustainable business models and their implementation, particularly in low and middle income countries. In particular, funding should be made available to support pilot projects on commercializing and disseminating low and middle income technologies.

2. AS CUSTODIANS OF THE PATENT SYSTEM, PATENT OFFICES AROUND THE WORLD SHOULD DO THE FOLLOWING:

2.1. They should collect patent-related information in a standard form and make this available to the public for free. Data should include information that will assist in assessing patent landscapes in targeted areas of technology, such as essential medicines.

2.2. In addition to collecting patent information, they should collect data on the type and major terms of license agreements.

2.3. They should establish policy branches to investigate ways to make data more available, assist in patent landscaping and disseminate information about the patent system.

3. THE PRIVATE SECTOR SHOULD TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE FOLLOWING:

3.1. They should support the creation of trust builders and agree to submit disputes to them for mediation.

3.2. They should support the work of trust builders in organizing workshops and training programmes through which stakeholders can discuss and exchange views on IP policy.

3.3. Leading private sector institutions in high, middle and low income countries should establish an independent, non-profit technology assessment organization to evaluate new biotechnology products and services originating in low and middle income countries and by indigenous and local communities.

3.4. Together with business, law and economics experts, they should develop new and sustainable business models of developing, commercializing and disseminating biotechnology products and services that are attuned to local needs and conditions. This includes greater collaboration with public sector initiatives.

3.5. They should be transparent about the patents they hold and where they are registered, and collaborate with patent offices in building publicly-available databases of this information.

4. THE MEDIA HAS AN IMPORTANT ROLE TO PLAY IN IP POLICY AS WELL:

4.1. The media should develop a science policy news beat to facilitate general knowledge of science and technology issues and encourage coverage of the role of science on economic and social welfare.

5. UNIVERSITIES AND THE SCIENTIFIC COMMUNITY SHOULD DO THE FOLLOWING:

5.1. Universities should establish clear principles relating to the use and dissemination of their IP that includes ensuring greater access and the use of licensing provisions that make it easy to conduct research and development on products needed by low and middle income countries.

5.2. They should develop new measures of the success of technology transfer, development and social investment that correspond to social and economic return.

5.3. Business schools should include low and middle income country conditions and opportunities in their curriculum and should develop programmes through which their students can provide business planning assistance to low and middle income country entrepreneurs.

5.4. Universities in high income countries should collaborate with those in low and middle income countries to create educational opportunities at the doctoral and post-doctoral levels through which scientists maintain links with their countries of origin and conduct research focused on the needs of those countries. Universities in high income countries should encourage those of its professors from the Diaspora to assist their countries of origin through supervision of students, joint research projects, conducting peer review and so on.

5.5. Researchers should analyse questions of IP within the larger context of IP and innovation systems. To do so, they should use analytical tools that provide a broader, interdisciplinary perspective on IP and innovation.

For more information on this, see The International Expert Group on Biotechnology, Innovation and Intellectual Property’s Report entitled “Toward a New Era of Intellectual Property: From Confrontation to Negotiation - A Report from the International Expert Group on Biotechnology, Innovation and Intellectual Property”.