“Will patenting crops help feed the hungry?” asked an article on The Conversation last week.
Interesting points made in the article include:
“In some cases, where new technologies are useful in the developed world as well as in developing nations, it may still be useful to patent those technologies. Such technologies can be licensed to seed companies in the developed world for commercial gain, whilst still providing the technologies “for free” elsewhere.”
“In the developing world, we have a policy of making technologies freely available, whether patented or not. Even if we have a patent on a gene, we can provide a no-cost license in developing countries; many large companies do the same”
“Without gene patents we would have less innovation, a solution that wouldn’t help food security at all.” (…)
Good to see solutions such as no-cost licences aired as ways to use IP in a development context. There are alternative ways to work within the existing structures – and more discussion on these would be welcomed.
Thanks to our friends at Agrobiodiversity blog for sending the link.