[LINK] RFC: Submission to the Innovation Review

[Marghanita da Cruz]

Glen Turner wrote:
> Roger Clarke wrote:
> 
>> Many of the harmful aspects of patent and copyright law derive from 
>> international conventions and in particular from the spectacularly 
>> inadvisable intellectual property chapter of the 'Free Trade' 
>> Agreement entered into with the U.S.A. by the previous Government. An 
>> assessment of the US-FTA provisions is in Clarke (2004) - Annex B to 
>> this Submission.
> 
> An interesting thought experiment is "what is the minimal change to
> the patents system that would made it work correctly for software".
> The answer turns out to be to allow concurrent or subsequent independent
> discovery.
> 
> Interestingly, that's an answer the drug companies can live with.
> 

Last night's SBS's Insight was on GM food.

> DR ROBERT SPARROW, BIOETHICIST, MONASH UNIVERSITY: I wanted to observe, but we should be looking at not where the direct sources of money are coming from but also at the institutional cultures and the way in which science operates today. I mean, I think that if you're a young research scientist coming up in sort of biology, not being sort of pro-GM is a real career handicap. Essentially, I think that to become an expert in this area for most people means being willing to work on the modified crops.
> 
> JENNY BROCKIE: Is that right, TJ Higgins? Is that a fair enough comment about the CSIRO that you're institutionally well-disposed to GM crops and therefore that's your bias as an organisation?
> 
> DR TJ HIGGINS: No, I think I would disagree with the previous speaker's comment 100%. I think young scientists are very open-minded about what it is they want to work on, they see that gene technology and GM can make a contribution to the future and they're very excited about it.

<<http://news.sbs.com.au/insight/future_food__the_story_545478>>

Marghanita
-- 
Marghanita da Cruz
http://www.ramin.com.au
Phone: (+61)0414 869202