Subject: Initial thoughts from an animal scientist's perspective

Date: 30.01.2006

Dear colleagues,

Participants from nearly 30 countries have now registered in this conference, warranting the possibility for a good discussion with many contributions.

To get the ball rolling, here are some thoughts on the subject (from an animal scientist's perspective):

Amongst the several methods to protect intellectual property, we may distinguish these where motives are virtually always financial (e.g. patents) and those not necessarily linked to money-making (e.g. copyright). The latter has been an issue in scientific publishing for a long time and most of us have signed, at some point, copyright release forms to get our articles published in journals. This is a valuable means of safeguarding one's research and protecting the integrity of the scientific community.

Patenting is largely about money, but for what reasons? We can think of at least two:
    a) somebody wants to become rich
    b) substantial costs have incurred and must be retrieved

Of these two, the second is no stranger to science. Pharmaceutical companies patent new compounds and drugs (for humans or animals) to recover huge development costs. Understandably, they also wish to make a profit. With the rapid advancement of molecular genetics, genomics and proteomics, biotechnology companies are following suite with patents on methods, treatments, specific substances and information. All this presupposes and requires good, solid
science. From an animal scientist's perspective, this can be quite acceptable. Public and state funding for research is gradually declining in most countries around the world. Although it may still be a key scientific research resource, we must increasingly turn to other sources to pick up the
slack. Healthy partnership with the industry can definitely promote scientific endeavors and research. Of course, you'd expect any sponsor to want some sort of reassurance and a reasonable return on its investment. This is an example where patenting can actually work to the benefit of science.

Problems may arise when somebody picks up on something that is intellectually "unprotected" and places a patent on it, with the sole intention of making money. No research is involved, no new useful findings become available; and there aren't really any R&D costs to recover. All it takes is to know the ropes in patent law. Here, patenting may actually end up stifling scientific developments and applications. So what can we, scientists, do to prevent this from happening? Sharing our results would be a good start. Clearly articulating what new has been found in a study increases public awareness. Publications in scientific journals are protected by copyright and aspiring patent holders cannot take this lightly. Furthermore, we may have to become a bit more conversant with legislative matters and patent law. We probably can't become lawyers but it won't hurt knowing how to spot a problem and raise a legal inquiry. All for good measure; nevertheless, we don't believe the majority of patents fall under this category.

In closing, patenting can, more often than not, be good for science; it helps when scientists and business executives level with each other, in this regard.

Georgios Banos and Georgios Valergakis
School of Veterinary Medicine
Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece