Intellectual Property Rights and Research Tools in Molecular Biology Summary of a Workshop Held at the National Academy of Sciences, February 15-16, 1996 (1997) / Chapter Skim
Currently Skimming:
ACCESS TO DATA AND INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY: SCIENTIFIC EXCHANGE IN GENOME RESEARCH
ACCESS TO DATA AND INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY: SCIENTIFIC EXCHANGE IN GENOME RESEARCH
Pages 28-39
The Chapter Skim interface presents what we've algorithmically identified as the most significant single chunk of text within every page in the chapter.
Select key terms on the right to highlight them within pages of the chapter.
From page 28... ...
I will then present an alternative framework for understanding how scientists regulate access to data, illustrating its use with examples from studies of the research community involved in genome mapping and sequencing. To conclude I will suggest some implications of this framework for analyzing how intellectual property policy might affect scientific openness.)
|
From page 29... ...
Research results are what gets published in journals or technical reports and thereby become the communal knowledge of the scientific community. Research-related information is a residual category that includes all kinds of entities that embody information but cannot be published in journals; it includes clones, algorithms, software, and descriptions of techniques that are too detailed to be included in the methods sections of scientific papers.
|
From page 30... ...
To understand the traffic patterns discussed above, it is necessary to look more closely at how, why, and when the entities produced in scientific laboratories cross the private-public divide. In addition, the gift-exchange perspective is based on a rather sharp distinction between public and private science, which is at variance with the many gradations of "publicness" that actually occur · · · ret ~ In scenic practice.
|
From page 31... ...
One of the most important processes that occur as scientific work proceeds is continuing evaluation of the credibility of various pieces of data. At the research front, the assemblages that constitute data-streams contain elements that vary greatly in perceived credibility.
|
From page 32... ...
The competitive edge typically declines as the technique or other initially scarce entity is disseminated. Various strategies can be used to exploit short-term competitive edges strategically.
|
From page 33... ...
From this point of view, collaboration involves negotiations in which data serve as bargaining chips in discussions of whether it makes sense to pool resources. Assessing whether or not a collaboration makes sense entails considering the resources that different groups can bring.
|
From page 34... ...
. In some cases, such as the European yeast genome-sequencing program, policymakers establish formal rules granting entitlements to portions of a data-stream to manage collaboration among geographically dispersed laboratories (Hilgartner and Brandt-Rauf in press)
|
From page 35... ...
The second issue to consider is the potential value that different portions of the data-stream have to competitors. In the case of genetic maps that are produced with publicly available clones, published data are of immediate utility to competitors because combining multiple sources of data will usually lead to an increase in the quality of the map in the region.
|
From page 36... ...
INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY AND OPENNESS I have argued that rather than merely assuming that academic science is governed by openness, analysts should try to understand the processes that shape what gets made public, what is kept private, and what is deployed in transactions that fall between these extremes. I now want to consider the implications of the more nuanced picture of scientific exchange that I advocate for issues of intellectual property protection.
|
From page 37... ...
A patent offers downstream readers an opportunity to extend a technology by providing details about how an invention works details that would be unavailable under a regime of trade secrecy. However, in the world of academic science, the restrictions on openness motivated by possible commercial exploitation might tend to propagate upstream from the point of potential patent back into the research process.
|
From page 38... ...
If that is true, then one might ask in which lines of research one would expect to find intellectual property considerations producing the largest reductions in openness. The data-stream perspective suggests that the answer might depend in large part on the specific competitive structure of a field of research.
|
From page 39... ...
Sci Tech Human Values 15(1)
|
Key Terms
This material may be derived from roughly machine-read images, and so is provided only to facilitate research.
More
information on Chapter Skim is available.