PIPRA logo

PIPRA’s Winter 2007 quarter newsletter:
Click to Download- Newsletter-Issue 7-Winter 2007

HOME PURPOSE BACKGROUND ACTIVITIES PARTICIPANTS PUBLICATIONS CONTACT US PIPRA PORTFOLIO JOB OPPORTUNITIES

PIPRA and MIHR announce the release of our new IP Handbook at BIO 2007 in Boston on May 6. View the press release. For more information on the IP Handbook or to place an order, visit www.IPhandbook.org

The beta version of the PIPRA agricultural IP database is now on-line for public access.  Please visit it at: http://pipra.m-cam.com.  Over 6600 patents and patent applications from 45 different countries are now searchable by many fields, including licensing status.  The data represent the agricultural portfolio of 27 universities and non-profit research institutions.

PIPRA and McGill University’s Centre for Intellectual Property Policy have signed an MOU and look forward to future work together. In addition to our members, PIPRA has a broad network of affiliated institutions that provide a strong base for collaborative activities.

To download PIPRA’s inter-institutional Memorandum of Understanding click here.

Humanitarian Use Reservation of Rights Licensing Language

PIPRA's members and our pro bono attorneys at Morrison and Foerster, have collaboratively developed licensing language for a humanitarian use reservation of rights. We welcome comments and queries regarding the language and encourage its widespread adoption among technology transfer professionals.

Membership Expanded to 45 Universities and Non-Profit Institutions in 13 countries

PIPRA's membership continues to grow, both within the United States, and internationally. A full list of PIPRA members and our Memorandum of Understanding can be found on the participants page. PIPRA membership is open to universities and non-profit research institutions. For more information on joining PIPRA, please contact Sara Boettiger by phone (530-754-6725) or email.

Development of Plant Transformation Vector with Maximal FTO

PIPRA is facilitating the design, construction, and testing of a plant transformation vector with maximal freedom-to-operate. PIPRA staff, a working group of leading plant transformation scientists, and PIPRA's pro bono attorneys are working together to create a vector with as many components as possible from the public domain or owned by PIPRA members with known licensing terms. The vector will be distributed on a royalty-free basis for humanitarian uses.

Purpose

The purpose of PIPRA is to help public sector agricultural research institutions achieve their public missions by ensuring access to intellectual property to develop and distribute improved staple crops and improved specialty crops.

Part of the mission of most public sector research institutions is to contribute to the well being of humankind, and to promote the economies of their region.

Staple crops are important to resource-poor farmers in developing countries who depend on small farm plots and face severe and very fundamental problems, such as poor agricultural soils, drought, plant diseases, and pests. Traditional agriculture has not been able to solve some of these problems. Because of low production, these resource-poor farmers are extremely vulnerable to malnutrition and death.

Specialty crops are important to US agriculture, and state economies depend on the universities in their states to develop new crop varieties with higher productivity, better nutritional value, enhanced resistance to diseases and reduced impact on the environment.

With the introduction of biotechnology in agriculture, researchers have a unique opportunity to contribute to the development of improved staple and specialty crop varieties. However, the development of new crop varieties with biotechnology depends on access to multiple technologies, which are often patented or otherwise protected by intellectual property rights (IPRs). Ownership of these rights is fragmented across many institutions in the public and private sector, which makes it difficult to identify who holds what rights to what technologies, in which countries, and to establish whether or not a new crop variety is at risk of infringing those rights. The current situation creates barriers to commercializing new staple and specialty crop varieties. PIPRA participants believe that if public sector institutions would collaborate in gathering information about and in the use of agricultural IPRs, the collaboration would make it easier for them to fulfill part of their public missions by speeding the creation and commercialization of improved staple and specialty crops.