A Review of Intellectual Property Protection within the CGIAR

Report of the Center Directors' Committee on Intellectual Property Rights transmitted to those attending ICW93 as background for a panel discussion on IPR and implications for IARCs. The report reviews the various steps taken by the centers and the CGIAR on IPR issues from 1991, lists studies undertaken, and summarizes comments received from NGOs, international organizations, and private firms. One of several annexes contains a draft model agreement to place center collections of plant genetic resources under the auspices of FAO.Agenda document, CGIAR International Centers Week, October 1993

Intellectual Property Rights Issues

The CGIAR Secretariat distributed two documents as background for the discussion of intellectual property rights and related matters at the CGIAR Mid Term Meeting in May 1992.The first is a statement of the principles for an integrated policy on intellectual property rights, plant genetic resources, and biosafety originally prepared by Lukas Brader, co-chair of the TAC-Center Directors Committee on Intellectual Property Rights and Plant Genetic Resources, and revised following its discussion at TAC 56 and CGIAR International Centers Week 1991. This version was issued by the CGIAR Secretariat to members to solicit feedback prior to the Group's participation in discussions beginning in November 1991.of the proposed International Convention on Biodiversity to be signed at UNCED The second document is a discussion paper originally prepared, on the basis of various consultations among interested parties in the CGIAR, at a meeting of the joint TAC-Center Directors Committee in January 1992 with representatives of BIOTASK, discussed at TAC 57 and subsequently revised. It covers intellectual property, biosafety, and conservation of plant genetic resources, and has attachments on the International Undertaking on Plant Genetic Resources, types of intellectual property and both ex situ and in situ conservation.The CGIAR Mid Term Meeting in May 1992 approved a Working Document on Genetic Resources and Intellectual Property which is attached to the summary record of that meeting.This record contains documents related to the agendas of TAC 56 and 57, and the CGIAR meetings of October-November 1991 and May 1992