Food Biotechnology Commons^™

Intellectual Property And Opportunities For Food Security In The Philippines, Jane Payumo, Howard Grimes, Antonio Alfonso, Stanley P. Kowalski, Keith Jones, Karim Maredia, Rodolfo Estigoy

Law Faculty Scholarship

By 2050, the Philippine population is projected to increase by as much as 41 percent, from 99.9 million to nearly 153 million people. Producing enough food for such an expanding population and achieving food security remain a challenge for the Philippine government. This paper argued that intellectual property rights (IPR) can play a key role in achieving the nation’s current goal to be food-secure and provided examples to illustrate that the presence of sound intellectual property (IP) helps foster research, development, and deployment of agricultural innovations. This paper also offered key recommendations about how the IP system can be further …

Superweeds And Suspect Seeds: Does The Genetically-Engineered Crop Deregulation Process Put American Agriculture At Risk, Margaret Sova Mccabe

Law Faculty Scholarship

The federal government’s regulatory approach to genetically engineered (GE) crops, known as “The Framework”, is now twenty-five years old. Despite two and half decades of a consistent regulatory regime, GE crop and food regulation remains controversial. This article suggests that regulatory science and its tenets of independence, transparency, and public science should guide reforms of The Framework so that it is an efficient and reliable regulatory system. The article has four parts: 1) it provides a brief overview of the history of GE crop regulation; 2)it describes the key attributes of The Framework and related regulatory documents, with particular focus …

Cloned Meat, Voluntary Food Labeling, And Organic Oreos, Donna M. Byrne

The University of New Hampshire Law Review

[Excerpt] “In December 2006, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced that it had reviewed all the available evidence and was poised to approve meat and milk from cloned animals and their progeny. I remember telling one of my colleagues, a patent law professor, who should be as comfortable with technology as anyone, about this development, and his response was, “Yuck. I’m not eating it!” To which of course I replied, “Humph. You won’t know the difference.” Meat or milk from a clone or its descendant is virtually identical to meat or milk from a non-clone, said the FDA, as …

Crop Bioengineering: Enormous Potential For Catalyzing International Development, Peter Gregory, Stanley P. Kowalski

Law Faculty Scholarship

[Excerpt] Bioengineering provides unique and dramatic opportunities for crop improvement. It can be used to develop crop varieties that would otherwise be unavailable and can facilitate much faster and more precise ways of developing improved varieties. It can help to increase yields and reliability and thus reduce food costs for the consumer while helping to control input costs for farmers through reduced applications of herbicides, pesticides, and fertilizer.

The extent to which this will be achieved depends on how effectively the global scientific community – including both the public and private sectors – can cooperate in harnessing the power of …

Rational Risk/Benefit Analysis Of Genetically Modified Crops, Stanley P. Kowalski

Law Faculty Scholarship

Safety concerns over the use of molecular biotechnology in the improvement of crops has generated substantial, heated and confusing debates, often driven by ideology and hysterics. Modification of crops is not new, and biotechnology (in its broadest sense) has been used for over a century to accelerate the development of new crops for food, feed and fibre, so as to meet the demands of a growing global community. The introduction of crops developed via molecular biotechnology [Genetically Modified Crops (GMCs)] represents the latest step in this inexorable innovative progression of technology. However, misinformed concern has led to a broad embrace …

Ip And The Global Public Interest: Challenges And Opportunities, Jon R. Cavicchi, Stanley P. Kowalski

Law Faculty Scholarship

[Excerpt from article] Intellectual property (IP) capacity is essential for economic development, particularly as countries transition into the higher technology sectors, for example biotechnology. For developing countries, a commitment to minimal IP rights protection will determine inclusion in the World Trade Organization (WTO), facilitate access to foreign-direct investment, and accelerate economic development. However, on a more fundamental level, capacity in IP management will affect whether a country can provide basic health and nutritional needs for its citizens. For example, sustainable food security presents a serious challenge in many developing countries; as their economies rapidly emerge, urban centers expand, arable land …

Agricultural Biotechnology In China: An Unreachable Goal?, Stanley P. Kowalski

Law Faculty Scholarship

Recently there has been much discussion about the People’s Republic of China’s (PR) investment in and commitment to agricultural biotechnology (agri-biotech). Rapid economic expansion, population growth and technological development are changing the PRC; accompanying these changes is increased demand for high-quality food and fibre. Agri-biotech is optimistically viewed as an important way to meet these demands. Whereas Chinese technological capacity in agri-biotech has advanced significantly over the past decade, it may be unable to meet these challenges. Even when this capacity is combined with good intentions, enlightened policy and large capital outlays, accelerated development of agri-biotech may nevertheless be precluded. …

Golden Rice: A Case Study In Intellectual Property Management And International Capacity Building, Stanley P. Kowalski, R. David Kryder

Law Faculty Scholarship

In order for agricultural biotechnology (agri-biotech) to play a larger role in the development of sustainable agricultural systems, intellectual property (IP) rights management must be addressed. These issues are not limited to developing countries. With increased globalization, the management of agri-biotech IP rights affects both developing and industrialized countries. In industrialized countries, for example, IP rights risk management entails protection of inventions via strong patent portfolios. For developing countries, IP rights risk management includes the acquisition of rights requisite for the use of inventions essential to the basic welfare of the population. Strategies are needed to bridge these disparate IP …

Golden Rice: A Case Study In Intellectual Property Management And International Capacity Building, Stanley P. Kowalski, R. David Kryder

RISK: Health, Safety & Environment (1990-2002)

The authors examine the management of risks associated with intellectual property linked to agri-biotech products, with emphasis on the international movement of agri-biotech intellectual property from industrialized to developing nations.

Review Of: Eat Your Genes: How Genetically Modified Food Is Entering Our Diet (Stephen Nottingham Ed.), Natalie Duval

RISK: Health, Safety & Environment (1990-2002)

Review of the book: "Eat Your Genes: How Genetically Modified Food Is Entering Our Diet," by Stephen Nottingham, (St. Martin's Press 1999). Introduction, Glossary, Bibliography, Index. ISBN 1-85649-578-7 [212 pp. $17.95. Softbound, St. Martin's Press, Inc., New York, NY 10010].

Poorer European Countries Are Less Concerned About Biotechnology Than Richer Countries, Michael Siegrist

RISK: Health, Safety & Environment (1990-2002)

The author examines the relationship between GNP, media coverage, and public perceptions of the utility, risk, and acceptability of medical and food-related applications of biotechnology.

Review Of: Alan Mchughen, Pandora's Picnic Basket: The Potential And Hazards Of Genetically Modified Foods, Shimona Pratap Singh

RISK: Health, Safety & Environment (1990-2002)

Review of the book: Alan McHughen, Pandora's Picnic Basket: The Potential and Hazards of Genetically Modified Foods (Oxford University Press 2000).Acknowledgements, introduction, glossary and abbreviations, resources, index. ISBN 0-19-850674-0 [277 pp. $25.00 Cloth, 198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016-4314].

The Intellectual And Technical Property Components Of Pro-Vitamin A Rice (Goldenricetm): A Preliminary Freedom-To-Operate Review, R. David Kryder, Stanley P. Kowalski, Anatole F. Krattiger

Law Faculty Scholarship

Rice is a staple food for millions of people, predominantly in Asia, but lacks essential nutritional components such as Vitamin A. This is very important for over 180 million children and women of child bearing age who suffer from Vitamin A deficiency in Asia alone. For this reason, an improvement was made under an effort led by Profs. Ingo Potrykus and Peter Beyer by inserting several genes into rice to produce an improved product called GoldenRice. Because GoldenRice has the potential to be easily integrated into the farming systems of the world's poorer regions, the advent of GoldenRice promises to …

Normalizing Novelty: Regulating Biotechnological Risk At The U.S. Epa, Les Levidow, Susan Carr

RISK: Health, Safety & Environment (1990-2002)

Drs. Levidow and Carr examine EPA's regulation of biotechnology in the field of genetically modified organisms.