IPR/ BIOTECHNOLOGY DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURAL AND RESOURCE ECONOMICS UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY

The role of intellectual property rights has become a key issue in agricultural and resource economics over the past two decades. The changes in biotechnology and intellectual property protection that have occurred since 1980 make private enterprise possible for the first time in many broad research areas in agriculture and the health sciences. Furthermore, universities, cooperatives and other public and non-profit institutions now have the option of licensing or selling research outputs in this area, rather than giving their results away for free. As the scope and power of IPRs in biotechnology has grown, their international reach has expanded. These developments raise many fascinating and important issues: optimal patent design and licensing; the implications of IPRs under cumulative innovation, typical of agriculture and biotechnology; the effects of the TRIPS agreement on developing countries; the effects of IPRs on monopolization of key sectors; and the optimal way to ensure that the poor of the world have access to pharmaceutical products including AIDS drugs. Berkeley is the acknowledged world leader in academic IPR expertise, and relevant graduate courses in the department are complemented by others in economics, business and law.