Law Commons^™

Intellectual Property Issues In Genomics, Rebecca S. Eisenberg

Articles

Controversy over intellectual property rights in the results of large-scale cDNA sequencing raises intriguing questions about the roles of the public and private sectors in genomics research, and about who stands to benefit (and who stands to lose) from the private appropriation of genomic information. While the US Patent and Trademark Office has rejected patent applications on cDNA fragments of unknown function from the National Institutes of Health, private firms have pursued three distinct strategies for exploiting unpatented cDNA sequence information: exclusive licensing, non-exclusive licensing and dedication to the public domain.

Lmo's: Treasure Chest Or Pandora's Box, Michael S. Baram

Faculty Scholarship

Biotechnology is beginning to trans- A form agriculture across the globe. After thousands of years of traditional plant and animal breeding, and centuries of mechanization and chemical application, genetic research has opened a Pandora's box of living modified organisms (LMOs) designed to improve the productivity and efficiency of commercial agriculture. A multitude of transgenic crops and animals is now being introduced into commerce by biotechnology companies, and b nations are puzzling out how to appropriate the benefits and manage the risks.

American biotechnology companies and agencies are the leading proponents of using LMOs. They claim that two decades of costly …

Patents: Help Or Hindrance To Technology Transfer?, Rebecca S. Eisenberg

Book Chapters

Intellectual property is a broad heading used to refer to a wide variety of rights associated with inventions, discoveries, writings, artistic works, product designs, and designations of the source of goods and services. Patents and trade secrets are the most important of these sorts of intellectual properties in the field of biotechnology. One aspect of intellectual property that distinguishes it sharply from other forms of property-and for some people makes it harder to justify-is that intellectual properties may be possessed and used by many people simultaneously. This is not so for tangible property. If someone borrows my car, I cannot …