PIPRA and MIHR introduce IP Handbook

"It will be the reference for the next generation" says Ariel Pablos-Mendez, Managing Director of the Rockefeller Foundation at BIO 2007 in Boston on May 6 at the official launch of the 2000 page Intellectual Property Handbook. This collection of 153 chapters on the art and science of intellectual property management teaches us "to think of using IP in the public interest."

Lita Nelsen, head of technology transfer for MIT and one of the editors of the two volume reference book, describes it as "the How-To manual for using the tool of IP." It is geared, she says, toward two distinct audiences. One is "research institutions and technology transfer operations in developing countries that are building the capabilities of understanding and of actually practicing technology transfer." The other is "first world institutions, to make sure that they consider the needs of developing countries when they license important IP in medicines, vaccines, and foods, and do it right."

Suresh Jadhav, president of the Developing Country Vaccine Manufacturers Network says "I am quite sure that this book, when it goes to developing country manufacturers, or to the research organizations and the universities in developing countries, will certainly teach them the thought process about how to handle their own technologies and how to handle the technologies which are available from developed countries."

The IP Handbook fulfills the spirit of the old Chinese proverb "Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime."