New White Paper from IP2
It took 12 years from the first declaration of intent on the protection of genetic resources and indigenous knowledge, the so-called „Rio Convention“ of 1992, until the Nagoya Protocol was adopted as a binding agreement under international law. In the meantime, it has been ratified by 140 countries and transposed into national law. Expectations were high that poorer countries would no longer be deprived of their resources, but would receive an appropriate share of the profits of the industry („Mutual Agreed Terms“, MAT) through fair agreements („Access and Benefit Sharing“, ABS).
Today, 10 years later, euphoria has been replaced by disillusionment. Much less „green money“ has flowed in than most provider countries had hoped. Instead, the industry has often shifted its research and development activities to countries that have not signed the protocol, such as the USA. In the foreseeable future, free access to digital sequence information (DSI) will provide a tool that will make the physical presence of biological material superfluous when it comes to screening it for potential pharmacological effects. If this happens, the Nagoya Protocol will become obsolete. The current efforts to extend the protocol to DSI are therefore viewed extremely critically by the USA, but also by Europe and Japan.
Our white paper „10 years of the Nagoya Protocol“ explains the background, summarizes the current implementation into national law and provides an overview of the requirements that R&D and, subsequently, patent applicants must meet. The article by Bernd Fabry, Martin Fabry and Frank Fischer is available for free download on the homepage of IP2 Patentanwalts GmbH.