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Providing Public Goods Under International Law: Of Openness and Enclosure

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 February 2017

Sabrina Safrin*
Affiliation:
Rutgers School of Law-Newark

Abstract

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Type
Providing Global Public Goods Under International Law
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of International Law 2010

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References

1 Gordon, Wendy, On Owning Information: Intellectual Property and the Restitutionary Impulse, 78 VA. L. Rev. 149, 151-57, 162-63 (1992)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also Carrier, Michael A., Cabining Intellectual Property Through a Property Paradigm, 54 Duke L.J. 1 (2004)Google Scholar (describing how the duration and scope of intellectual property rights have been expanding without limit, and characterizing the increased propertization of knowledge as revolutionary); Lawrence Lessig, the Future of Ideas: the Fate of the Commons in A Connected World (2001); Kitch, Edmund W., Intellectual Property and the Common Law, 78 Va. L. Rev. 293 (1992)CrossRefGoogle Scholar (noting wide agreement that intellectual property protection has expanded in recent years).

2 See Jaffe, Adam B. & Lerner, Josh, Innovation and its Discontents: How Our Broken Patent System it Endangering Innovation and Progress, and What to do About It 61 (2004)Google Scholar.

3 Id.

4 See Carrier, supra note 1, at 13-16; Gordon, supra note 1; see also Eldred v. Ashcroft, 537 U.S. 186 (2003) (upholding Congress’s expansion of the copyright term by twenty years).

5 See Lemley, Mark A., The Modern Lanham Act and the Death of Common Sense, 108 Yale L. J. 1687, 1687-88 (1999)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Klieger, Robert N., Trademark Dilution: The Whittling Away of the Rational Basis for Trademark Protection, 58 U. Pitt. L. Rev. 790, 851-63 (1997)Google Scholar; Troutt, David Dante, A Portrait of the Trademark as a Black Man: Intellectual Property, Commodification and Redescription, 38 U.C. Davis L. Rev. 1141 (2005)Google Scholar; see also Boston Prof 1 Hockey Ass’n v. Dallas Cap & Emblem Mfg., Inc., 510 F.2d 1004 (5th Cir. 1975), cert, denied, 423 U.S. 868 (1975) (applying antidilution doctrine so as to threaten to grant perpetual protection for symbols even when their uses cause no confusion as to source or origin).

6 Geoff Tansey, Trade, Intellectual Property, Food and Biodiversity: Key Issues and Options for the 1999 Review of Article 27.3(B) of the Trips Agreement, at 5 (1999), available at http://www.quno.org/geneva/pdf/economic/Discussion/Trade-IP-Food-Biodiversity-English.pdf.

7 Raustiala, Kal & Victor, David G., The Regime Complex for Plant Genetic Resources, 58 Int’l Org. 277, 284 (2004)Google Scholar (“For most of human history, the rule of common heritage governed [plant genetic resources].”); Fowler, Cary, Protecting Farmer Innovation: The Convention on Biological Diversity and the Question of Origin, Jurimetrics 477, 480 (2001)Google Scholar; Adair, John M., The Bioprospecting Question: Should the United States Charge Biotechnology Companies for the Commercial use of Public Wild Genetic Resources?, 24 Ecology L.Q. 131, 141 (1997)Google Scholar (noting that access to all wild genetic resources had traditionally been open); Asebey, Edgar & Kempenaar, Jill, Biodiversity Prospecting: Fulfilling the Mandate of the Biodiversity Convention, 28 Vand. J. Transnat’L L. 703, 718 (1995)Google Scholar.

8 Safrin, Sabrina, Hyperownership in a Time of Biotechnological Promise: The International Conflict to Control the Building Blocks of Life, 98 AJIL 641, 644 (2004 CrossRefGoogle Scholar).

9 Id. at 644—45 and accompanying footnotes.

10 Id. at 645 and accompanying footnotes.

11 Id. at 641, 644-45.

12 A.L. Porzecanski et al., Access to Genetic Resources: An Evaluation of the Development and Implementation of Recent Regulation and Access Agreements 3 (1999) (unpublished manuscript), available at http://www.cbd.int/doc/case-studies/abs/cs-abs-agr-rpt.pdf.

13 Reíd, Walter V. et al., Biodiversity Prospecting: Using Genetic Resources for Sustainable Development 23 (1993)Google Scholar. See generally Aoki, Keith, Neocolonialism, Anticommons Property, and Biopiracy in the (NotSo-Brave) New World Order of International Intellectual Property Protection, 6 IND. J. Global Legal Stud. 11, 47 (1998)Google Scholar (summarizing the objections of Vandana Shiva, Ruth Gana (Okediji), Rosemary Coombe, James Boyle, Jack Kloppenberg, and others who have written about the “Great Seed Rip-off,” whereby international conventions allowed plant breeders to use traditional indigenous varieties of seeds and “improve them” via minor genetic alterations without compensating the countries from where those seeds originated); Odek, James O., Bio-Piracy: Creating Proprietary Rights in Plant Genetic Resources, 2 J. Intell. Prop. L. 141 (1994)Google Scholar (explaining that developing countries now “passionately” protest the prospecting for plant species by scientists from multinational corporations in developing countries’ tropical forests who then “protect their discoveries” through intellectual property rights. “To developing countries, these practices constitute uncompensated exploitation of their ‘plant genetic resources’ in the name of intellectual property rights.”).

14 Convention on Biological Diversity, art. 15, June 5, 1992, 31 ILM 818 (1992). “Recognizing the sovereign rights of States over their natural resources, the authority to determine access to genetic resources rests with the national governments and is subject to national legislation.” Id. at art. 15(1). As of February 8, 2011, 193 states have ratified, acceded to, or approved the convention. The United States has signed but not joined the Convention. For a• complete list of parties to the Convention, see http://www.cbd.int/convention/parties/list/ (last visited Feb. 8, 2011).

15 Glowka, Lyle, Bioprospecting, Alien Invasive Species, and Hydrothermal Vents: Three Emerging Legal Issues in the Conservation and Sustainable use of Biodiversity, 13 Tul. Envtl. L.J. 329, 330-31 (2000)Google Scholar (reporting that ten nations have passed laws greatly restricting access to raw biological material, including genetic material within their borders). Since Mr. Glowka’s article was published, at least two more nations, Brazil and India, have put access-restricting regimes into place. At least thirty others are in the process of doing so. Safrin, supra note 8, at 641, 649.

16 For an analysis of these laws, see Safrin, supra note 8, at 649-55.

17 Nations have yet to agree on a consistent definition of traditional knowledge. The WIPO has defined traditional knowledge as “tradition-based literary, artistic or scientific works; performances; inventions; scientific discoveries; designs; marks, names and symbols; undisclosed information; and all other tradition-based innovations and creations resulting from intellectual activity in the industrial, scientific, literary or artistic fields.” WIPO, Intellectual Property Needs and Expectations of Traditional Knowledge Holders: WIPO Retort on Fact-Finding Missions on Intellectual Property and Traditional Knowledge (1998-1999) 25 (2001), available at http://www.wipo.int/export/sites/www/tk/en/tk/ffm/report/final/pdf/partl.pdf (last visited Feb. 8, 2011).

18 See Safrin, Sabrina, Chain Reaction: How Property Begets Property, 82 Notre Dame L. Rev. 1917, 1937-41 (2007)Google Scholar.

19 WTO, Ministerial Declaration of 14 November 2001, WT/MIN(01)/DEC/1, 41 ILM 746 (2002).

20 WIPO, Intergovernmental Committee on Intellectual Property and Genetic Resources, Traditional Knowledge and Folklore, Third Session, Review of Existing Intellectual Property Protection of Traditional Knowledge, WIPO/Grtkf/IC/3/7, at 6-8 (May 6, 2002), available at http://www.wipo.int/edocs/mdocs/tk/en/wipo_grtkf_ic_3/wipo_grtkf_ic_3_7.pdf (last visited Feb. 8, 2011).

21 WIPO, Intergovernmental Committee on Intellectual Property and Genetic Resources, Traditional Knowledge and Folklore, Sixteenth Session, The Protection of Traditional Knowledge: Revised Objectives and Principles, WIPO/GRTKF/IC/16/5 Prov., at 12 (Jan. 22, 2010), available at http://www.wipo.int/edocs/mdocs/tk/en/wipo_grtkf_ic_16/wipo_grtkf_ic_16_5_prov.pdf (last visited Feb. 8, 2011).

22 Id.

23 Id. at art. 9.

24 Id. at art. 10.

25 Id. at art. 8.

26 Id. at art. 5 (identifying the beneficiaries of protection as the “indigenous and traditional communities themselves ... as well as recognized individuals within these communities . . . ); art. 6(1) (providing that the “holders” of traditional knowledge are entitled to “fair and equitable benefit sharing arising out of the commercial or industrial application” of the knowledge).

27 WIPO, Intergovernmental Committee on Intellectual Property and Genetic Resources, Traditional Knowledge and Folklore, Fourteenth Session, Report, WIPO/GRTKF/IC/14/12 (Oct. 1, 2009), available at http://www.wipo.int/edocs/mdocs/tk/en/wipo_grtkf_ic_14/wipo_grtkf_ic_14_12.pdf (last visited Feb. 8, 2011).

28 Safrin, supra note 18.