[LINK] Manchester manifesto: How science is shackled by intellectual property

[Kim Holburn]

http://www.isei.manchester.ac.uk/TheManchesterManifesto.pdf

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/nov/26/science-shackles-intellectual-property

> The myth is that IP rights are as important as our rights in  
> castles, cars and corn oil. IP is supposedly intended to encourage  
> inventors and the investment needed to bring their products to the  
> clinic and marketplace. In reality, patents often suppress invention  
> rather than promote it: drugs are "evergreened" when patents are on  
> the verge of running out – companies buy up the patents of potential  
> rivals in order to prevent them being turned into products.  
> Moreover, the prices charged, especially for pharmaceuticals, are  
> often grossly in excess of those required to cover costs and make  
> reasonable profits.
>
> IP rights are beginning to permeate every area of scientific  
> endeavour. Even in universities, science and innovation, which have  
> already been paid for out of the public purse, are privatised and  
> resold to the public via patents acquired by commercial interests.  
> The drive to commercialise science has overtaken not only applied  
> research but also "blue-skies" research, such that even the pure  
> quest for knowledge is subverted by the need for profit.
>
> For example, it is estimated that some 20% of individual human genes  
> have been patented already or have been filed for patenting. As a  
> result, research on certain genes is largely restricted to the  
> companies that hold the patents, and tests involving them are  
> marketed at prohibitive prices. We believe that this poses a very  
> real danger to the development of science for the public good.
>

....

> For science to continue to flourish, it is necessary that the  
> knowledge it generates be made freely and widely available. IP  
> rights have the tendency to stifle access to knowledge and the free  
> exchange of ideas that is essential to science. So, far from  
> stimulating innovation and the dissemination of the benefits of  
> science, IP all too often hampers scientific progress and restricts  
> access to its products.


-- 
Kim Holburn
IT Network & Security Consultant
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