The Intellectual Property And Food Project

The relationship between intellectual property and food affects the production and availability of food by regulating dealings in products, processes, innovations, information and data. With increasingly intricate relations between international and domestic law, as well as practices and conventions, intellectual property and food interact in many different ways. This volume is a timely consideration and assessment of some of the more contentious and complex issues found in this relationship, such as genetic technology, public research and food security, socio-economic factors and the root cause of poverty and patent-busting. The contributions are from leading scholars in this emerging field and each chapter foregrounds some of the key developments in the area, exploring historical, doctrinal and theoretical issues in the field while at the same time developing new ideas and perspectives around intellectual property and food. The collection will be a useful resource in leading further discussion and debate about intellectual property law and food.

The relationship between intellectual property and food affects the production and availability of food by regulating dealings in products, processes, innovations, information and data. With increasingly intricate relations between international and domestic law, as well as practices and conventions, intellectual property and food interact in many different ways. This volume is a timely consideration and assessment of some of the more contentious and complex issues found in this relationship, such as genetic technology, public research and food security, socio-economic factors and the root cause of poverty and patent-busting. The contributions are from leading scholars in this emerging field and each chapter foregrounds some of the key developments in the area, exploring historical, doctrinal and theoretical issues in the field while at the same time developing new ideas and perspectives around intellectual property and food. The collection will be a useful resource in leading further discussion and debate about intellectual property law and food.

This book examines the contribution which intellectual property rights can make in the struggle for food security in developing countries. The book consists of 11 chapters. Chapter 1 locates intellectual property rights within the armoury of food security policies. Chapter 2 deals with definitional issues and examines the role of intellectual property rights in incentivizing agricultural research and development. Chapter 3 examines the international landscape of intellectual property and the approaches taken to the relationship between intellectual property rights, agricultural biotechnology, access to biological resources, food security and globalization which are taken by the WTO, FAO, CBD and WIPO among the various international and development agencies. Plant variety rights (PVRs) are a specially created form of intellectual property right originally minted to encourage agricultural innovation and Chapter 4 examines the effectiveness of PVRs in a food security context. Agricultural innovation is in part dependent upon access of researchers to the genetic resources of the biodiverse countries of the South. Chapter 5 considers the attempts to construct an international regime to secure this access. The important role of traditional farmers in preserving landraces and cultivars from which improvements can be derived has generated for a call for the recognition of farmers' rights, and this is examined in Chapter 6 together with agitation for the protection of the traditional knowledge which often informs access to the useful genetic resources. Chapter 7 examines the intellectual property implications of the use of genetically modified (GM) crops as a technological solution to food insecurity. The protection of GM crops is achieved through patent protection and Chapter 9 looks at the competition law implications of patent licensing, patent pools and patent thickets. An old intellectual property device that underpinned the commercial development of European agricultural marketing is the geographical indication, and Chapter 8 examines the contribution it might make to achieving food security. Returning to the theme of the role of intellectual property law in incentivizing innovation, Chapter 10 examines its role in promoting agricultural research. The concluding chapter proposes a number of recommendations for action in deploying intellectual property law in the struggle for food security.

Considering the effort and funding devoted to a company's success, understanding Intellectual Property rights patents, trade secrets, trademarks, and licensing is essential. Establishing appropriate internal policies from the outset can prevent companies from learning a costly and painful lesson in the courtroom. With Intellectual Property in the Food Technology Industry, currently the only book of its kind focusing specifically on the food industry, one will learn what to consider throughout the various creative phases of a product's lifespan from initial research and development initiatives through post-production. Readers will have an understanding of the intellectual property protections afforded to U.S. corporations, methods to pro-actively reduce potential problems, and guidelines for future considerations to reduce legal spending, prevent IP theft, and allow for greater profitability from corporate innovation and inventiveness.

Considering the effort and funding devoted to a company's success, understanding Intellectual Property rights patents, trade secrets, trademarks, and licensing is essential. Establishing appropriate internal policies from the outset can prevent companies from learning a costly and painful lesson in the courtroom. With Intellectual Property in the Food Technology Industry, currently the only book of its kind focusing specifically on the food industry, one will learn what to consider throughout the various creative phases of a product's lifespan from initial research and development initiatives through post-production. Readers will have an understanding of the intellectual property protections afforded to U.S. corporations, methods to pro-actively reduce potential problems, and guidelines for future considerations to reduce legal spending, prevent IP theft, and allow for greater profitability from corporate innovation and inventiveness.

This unique and comprehensive collection investigates the challenges posed to intellectual property by recent paradigm shifts in biology. It explores the legal ramifications of emerging technologies, such as genomics, synthetic biology, stem cell research, nanotechnology, and biodiscovery. Extensive contributions examine recent controversial court decisions in patent law such as Bilski v. Kappos, and the litigation over Myriad's patents in respect of BRCA1 and BRCA2 while other papers explore sui generis fields, such as access to genetic resources, plant breeders' rights, and traditional knowledge. The collection considers the potential and the risks of the new biology for global challenges such as access to health-care, the protection of the environment and biodiversity, climate change, and food security. It also considers Big Science projects such as biobanks, the 1000 Genomes Project, and the Doomsday Vault. The inter-disciplinary research brings together the work of scholars from Australia, Canada, Europe, the UK and the US and involves not only legal analysis of case law and policy developments, but also historical, comparative, sociological, and ethical methodologies. Intellectual Property and Emerging Technologies will appeal to policy-makers, legal practitioners, business managers, inventors, scientists and researchers.

Considering the effort and funding devoted to a company's success, understanding Intellectual Property rights patents, trade secrets, trademarks, and licensing is essential. Establishing appropriate internal policies from the outset can prevent companies from learning a costly and painful lesson in the courtroom. With Intellectual Property in the Food Technology Industry, currently the only book of its kind focusing specifically on the food industry, one will learn what to consider throughout the various creative phases of a product's lifespan from initial research and development initiatives through post-production. Readers will have an understanding of the intellectual property protections afforded to U.S. corporations, methods to pro-actively reduce potential problems, and guidelines for future considerations to reduce legal spending, prevent IP theft, and allow for greater profitability from corporate innovation and inventiveness.

This book examines the social impact of intellectual property laws. It addresses issues and trends relating to health, food security, education, new technologies, preservation of bio-cultural heritage and contemporary challenges in promoting the arts. It explores how intellectual property frameworks could be better calibrated to meet socio-economic needs in countries at different stages of development, with local contexts and culture in mind. A resource for policy-makers, stakeholders, non-profits and students, this volume furthermore highlights alternative modes of innovation that are emerging to address such diverse challenges as neglected or resurgent diseases in developing countries and the harnessing of creative possibilities on the Internet. The collected essays emphasize not only fair access by individuals and communities to intellectual property – protected material, whether a cure, a crop variety, clean technology, a textbook or a tune – but also the enhancement of their own capabilities in cultural participation and innovation.

Nuno Pires de Carvalho, widely honored for his incomparable research in the origins and development of intellectual property, has devoted a considerable portion of his writing to the role this field of law plays in specific areas of human endeavor, including medicine and fashion. In this book, he brings his meticulous scholarship to bear on how society has constructed intellectual property so as to adapt it to the needs of the industries of food and hospitality and how entrepreneurs have extracted from intellectual property the most appropriate means for capturing knowledge and reputation in these two fields of business. Presenting a comprehensive collection of more than two hundred documentary sources illustrating this evolution since antiquity ¬– with notes explaining the context and relevance of each source – the book delineates the enchainment of important moments in the development of intellectual property in the context of food and hospitality. Along the way, the book details the particular development of such specific aspects as the following: rules against unfair competition among food producers and preparers; patents for culinary recipes, foodstuffs, and hospitality services; exclusions from patentability; marking of goods and containers; inventions of devices and processes in food preparation; identifiers in such industries as cutlery, baking, winemaking, cheesemaking, and brewing; emergence of intellectual property for plant varieties; database protection for organized compilations of recipes. To illustrate some of the peculiarities of intellectual property as applied to food and hospitality, the book includes numerous pictures of patent and copyright claim documents, trademarks, advertisements, labels, culinary book covers, and food preparation devices. Because of the multiple nature of the human activities behind it, food calls for every variant of intellectual property. Thus, this matchless volume will be of great interest to all concerned with any branch of intellectual property law, including practitioners, academics, magistrates, government officials, and even the legal community as a whole. The book will reveal not only the ways intellectual property evolves and adapts to social changes but also how intellectual property law accommodates the needs and aspirations of entrepreneurs in the fields of food and hospitality.