Patent and intellectual property rights issues

Abstract

The present status and future prospects of genetically modified (GM or transgenic) crops have been the subject of several recent reviews (Dunwell 2000, 2002, 2004, 2008). Although these reviews include some information extracted from patent databases in order to provide a commercial perspective, this analysis has been necessarily limited in extent. The present review will supplement the information published previously on the patent and intellectual property rights (IPR) (Johns 2006) aspects of transgenic methodology (Dunwell 2005, 2006), horticultural crops (Dixon and Ogier 2007; Clark and Jondle 2008; Dunwell 2009b) and haploid plants (Dunwell 2009a) and will extend to a discussion of IPR relevant to the research scientist (Shear and Kelley 2003) and of those interested in international development (Koo et al. 2004), globalization (Parayil 2003; Aerni 2007; Beatty 2008), and sociological (Cabanilla 2007) and ethical aspects of the public- and private-sector relationships (Graff et al. 2003; Donnenwirth et al. 2004; Karapinar and Temmerman 2008).