The European Commission IPR Helpdesk publication ‘Patent v Publishing’ (attached) is worthy of careful study. It contains discussion of the traditional tensions within the ‘to publish or not to publish’ conundrum, knowledge sharing, protection of inventiveness, short explanations of the methods used to transfer ownership of IP rights by way of assignment, licensing, and a short reference to Open Access to ‘the Commons’ – the policy that there should be as wide a dissemination of human knowledge and discovery to all as possible.

Patenting_v _publishing

The European Helpdesk website can be found at:

http://www.iprhelpdesk.eu/

BBC Programme: ‘Gene Patenting’

There is also a programme entitled ‘Gene Patenting’, currently on i-player which includes discussion of the tensions within ‘Patenting v Publishing’ in light of the recent US Supreme Court decision, involving the company known as Myriad and its attempts to patent the BRCA1 and BRCA2 gene sequence. The writer has not read the Myriad decision, but understands that Myriad was unsuccessful in its appeal to patent the particular gene sequence that was the subject of its considerable research. The link to the BBC programme is set out below.

Gene Patenting:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b037vb4d