Intellectual Property and Biodiversity: When and Where are Property Rights Important?
AbstractAn important issue in the life sciences industries concerns the nature of the incentive mechanism that should govern the production of innovation within this R&D sector. We look at the specific problem of coordinating the supply of inputs across very different agents - North and South - that must each supply inputs in order to generate innovations from the industry. The current arrangement in this industry provides for a single property right at “end of the pipeline”, i.e. where marketing of the innovation occurs. This property rights scenario raises two problems, one of efficiency and one of equity. The key question asked here pertains to the number and placement of property rights that should be instituted to address this property rights failure. Should one establish new property rights in traditional knowledge alone; property rights in genetic information alone; or in both? We demonstrate that in a world in which traditional knowledge and genetic information are complements in the production of R&D, a resolution of the property rights failure in genetic information also may resolve the allocation failure in traditional knowledge even in the absence of a distinct property right. The reason is that traditional knowledge of the nature of private information is comparable to a trade secret. Traditional knowledge holders may use this informational advantage to improve their benefit by capturing some informational rent. A new property right is important to enable bargaining and coordination to occur across the industry, but a single property right is probably sufficient to enable coordination between the two agents.
Download InfoIf you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the proper application to view it first. In case of further problems read the IDEAS help page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
Bibliographic InfoPaper provided by Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei in its series Working Papers with number 2011.79.
Date of creation: Nov 2011
Date of revision:
Biodiversity Prospecting; Traditional Knowledge; Genetic Resources; Intellectual Property Rights; Sequential R&D;
Other versions of this item:
- Timothy Swanson & Mare Sarr, 2012. "Intellectual Property and Biodiversity: When and Where are Property Rights important?," CIES Research Paper series 10-2012, Centre for International Environmental Studies, The Graduate Institute.
- Q56 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Environment and Development; Environment and Trade; Sustainability; Environmental Accounts and Accounting; Environmental Equity; Population Growth
- O34 - Economic Development, Technological Change, and Growth - - Technological Change; Research and Development; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Intellectual Property and Intellectual Capital
- L24 - Industrial Organization - - Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior - - - Contracting Out; Joint Ventures
This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:
- NEP-ALL-2012-02-01 (All new papers)
- NEP-INO-2012-02-01 (Innovation)
- NEP-IPR-2012-02-01 (Intellectual Property Rights)
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
- Costello, Christopher & Ward, Michael B., 2007.
"Search, bioprospecting, and biodiversity conservation,"
26527, University Library of Munich, Germany.
- Costello, Christopher & Ward, Michael, 2006. "Search, bioprospecting and biodiversity conservation," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 52(3), pages 615-626, November.
- Lerner, Josh & Merges, Robert P, 1998. "The Control of Technology Alliances: An Empirical Analysis of the Biotechnology Industry," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 46(2), pages 125-56, June.
- Francine Lafontaine & Margaret E. Slade, 1998. "Incentive Contracting and the Franchise Decision," NBER Working Papers 6544, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
- Hart, Oliver D. & Moore, John, 1990.
"Property Rights and the Nature of the Firm,"
3448675, Harvard University Department of Economics.
- Francine Lafontaine & Margaret Slade, 2007.
"Vertical Integration and Firm Boundaries: The Evidence,"
Journal of Economic Literature,
American Economic Association, vol. 45(3), pages 629-685, September.
- Lafontaine, Francine & Slade, Margaret, 2007. "Vertical Integration and Firm Boundaries : The Evidence," The Warwick Economics Research Paper Series (TWERPS) 799, University of Warwick, Department of Economics.
- Sarr, Mare & Goeschl, Timo & Swanson, Tim, 2008. "The value of conserving genetic resources for R&D: A survey," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 67(2), pages 184-193, September.
- Perry, Martin K, 1978. "Vertical Integration: The Monopsony Case," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 68(4), pages 561-70, September.
- KINUKAWA Shinya & MOTOHASHI Kazuyuki, 2010. "Bargaining in Technology Markets: An empirical study of biotechnology alliances," Discussion papers 10020, Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI).
- Simpson, R David & Sedjo, Roger A & Reid, John W, 1996. "Valuing Biodiversity for Use in Pharmaceutical Research," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 104(1), pages 163-85, February.
- Rothaermel, Frank T., 2001. "Complementary assets, strategic alliances, and the incumbent's advantage: an empirical study of industry and firm effects in the biopharmaceutical industry," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 30(8), pages 1235-1251, October.
- Gordon C. Rausser & Arthur A. Small, 2000.
"Valuing Research Leads: Bioprospecting and the Conservation of Genetic Resources,"
Journal of Political Economy,
University of Chicago Press, vol. 108(1), pages 173-206, February.
- Rausser, Gordon C. & Small, Arthur A., 2000. "Valuing Research Leads: Bioprospecting and the Conservation of Genetic Resources," Berkeley Olin Program in Law & Economics, Working Paper Series qt4t56m5b8, Berkeley Olin Program in Law & Economics.
For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (barbara racah).
If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.
If references are entirely missing, you can add them using this form.
If the full references list an item that is present in RePEc, but the system did not link to it, you can help with this form.
If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.
Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.