Research:
Freedom to Operate Project
| Governing Transformative Technological Change |
| Freedom to Operate Project |
The creation of private intellectual property rights for agri-food innovations in the past 20 years has opened the global agri-food research system to substantial private involvement. One of the most pressing issues for many research programs is the "freedom to operate" in a world of overlapping and interwoven claims to intellectual property rights. Intellectual property rights are both de jure (e.g. patents, Plant Breeders' Rights, trademarks and trade secrets) and de facto (e.g. protected through contracts or via technical barriers such as hybrids). Developers face difficulties not just because of the legal hurdles of acquiring the rights to use proprietary technologies or materials, but also due to the practical challenge of being able to assemble practically and economically the skills and tools necessary to innovate. The development process is highly complex, as developers often require access to germplasm and up to 15-30 different proprietary technologies to develop a single product. Even in the absence of opportunistic behaviour by firms, the logistics of assembling access and licenses to all these elements is a problem itself. More importantly, however, the strategies that companies use to protect their rights have in many cases created real barriers for new entry firms and impediments for both public and private research and development. Furthermore, markets for intellectual property are just beginning to emerge; negotiating contracts is extremely protracted and expensive while some technologies are not accessible through the marketplace. This uncertainty impedes both public and private development of new biotechnology products, especially for smaller crops and smaller research programs. |
| Research Papers |
2002 Haghiri,
M., and P. Phillips. Forthcoming. The impact of globalization on agricultural
biotechnology in Asia: A model of regional - intellectual property rights.
Proceedings of the Asia Pacific Economics and Business Conference, 2002,
Sarawak, Malaysia, Oct 2-4. Dierker, D. and P. Phillips. 2001. "The Search for the Holy Grail? Freedom to Operate in Canadian Agricultural Biotechnology."Proceedings of the ICABR Meetings, Ravello, Italy, June. Download pdf Phillips, P. 2001. New Models of Agrifood Innovation and Development. Science and Technology Program, Harvard. http://www.cid.harvard.edu/cidbiotech/comments/ Phillips, P. and D. Dierker. 2001. "Public Good and Private Greed: Strategies for Realizing Public Benefits from a Privatized Global Agri-Food Research Effort." In P. Pardey (ed.), Title NA, IFPRI. Download pdf Phillips, P. and G.G. Khachatourians. 2001. The Biotechnology Revolution in Global Agriculture: Invention, Innovation and Investment in the Canola Sector. CABI. Stovin,
D. and P. Phillips. 2001. "Establishing Effective Intellectual
Property Rights and REducing Barriers to Entry in Canadian Agricultural
Biotechnology Research." In V. Santanielle, et al. (eds.), Title
NA, CAB International. Download
pdf 2000 Kuntz, G. and P. Phillips. 2000. "Transaction Costs and HT Canola: An Empirical Assessment". Perillat, B. and P. Phillips. 2000. "Farmer Returns from HT Canola: A Survey". Phillips, P. 2000. "Genetically Modified Agriculture: Lessons from Canola." (Presentation to the Conference on 'Biotechnology and the Public Interest: Prospects of Biotechnology in the Developing and Developed World', University of California at Berkeley, April 28.) Download pdf Phillips, P. 2000. " Intellectual Property Rights and Public Research in Canada" in V. Santaniello et al. (eds.) Agriculture and Intellectual Property Rights: Economic Institutional and Implementation Issues in Biotechnology. CAB International. Download pdf Phillips,
P. and J. Gustafson. 2000. "Patent Strategies in the Biotechnology
Industry and Implications for Technology Diffusion" (Proceedings
of the ICABR Conference, University of Rome "Tor Vergata",
August.) Stovin,
D. and P. Phillips. 2000. "Establishing Effective Intellectual
Property Rights and REducing Barriers to Entry in Canadian Agricultural
Biotechnology Research." Proceedings of the ICABR Conference, University
of Rome "Tor Vergata", August, Ravello, Italy. 1999 Gray, R., S. Malla and P. Phillips. "The Public and Not-For-Profit Sectors in a Biotechnology-Based, Privatizing World: The Canola Case" (Proceedings of the NE-165 Conference: "Transitions in Agbiotech: Economics of Strategy and Policy" in Washington, D.C., June 24-5, 1999). Download pdf Gray, R., S. Malla and P. Phillips. "Gains to Yield Increasing Research in the Evolving Canadian Canola Research Industry" (Proceedings of the ICABR conference on "The Shape of the Coming, Agricultural Biotechnology Transformation: Strategic Investment and Policy Approaches from an Economic Perspective," University of Rome "Tor Vergata", June 17-19, 1999). Download pdf Phillips, P. "Regional Systems of Innovation as a Modern R&D Entrepot: The Case of the Saskatoon Biotechnology Cluster" in J. Chrisman et al. (eds.), Innovation, Entrepreneurship, Family Business and Economic Development: A Western Canadian Perspective, University of Calgary Press (forthcoming). Download pdf Phillips, P. and D. Stovin. "The Economics of Intellectual Property Rights in the Agricultural Biotechnology Sector" in M. Qaim et al. (eds.), Agricultural Biotechnology in Developing Countries: Towards Optimizing the Benefits of the Poor, Kluwer Academic Publishers (forthcoming). Bonn, Germany, November 15-16, 1999. Download pdf http://www.zef.de/zef_englisch/f_veranstalt_biotech.htm |
| Studies Underway |
Genome
Prairie Centre: The Genome Canada program and the programs of its five regional Genome Centres (e.g. Genome Prairie) recognize the importance of investigating the social questions associated with the science of Genomics. There are four main projects within Genome Prairie that are headed up by four principal investigators (PI). Dr. Peter Phillips is the PI for the project entitled: Creating, Managing and Commercially Exploiting Intellectual Property The purpose of the project is to examine the impact and management of intellectual property. In the first instance, the project will examine the current legal system for intellectual property rights and will consider legislative or contractual mechanisms to create incentives but to minimize the monopolistic exploitation of resulting innovations. The project will next examine the role of formal and informal research networks in facilitating access to proprietary and exclusive knowledge and their impacts on the commercialization of resulting research efforts. These networks - e.g. Human Genome Project, AAFC Matching Investment Initiative, NRC Collaborations, international rice research effort - most often operate above the firm or organizational level but below the global level - they are inherently regional and supraorganizational. As such, the research involves legal, managerial, social and economic components. Finally, the project will examine the economics and strategies of firms as they attempt to exploit their intellectual property. |
| Links |
National
Research Council (NRC) |