CREATING, PROTECTING, AND USING CROP BIOTECHNOLOGIES WORLDWIDE IN AN ERA OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY

Proponents tout the positive incentive-to-innovate effects of intellectual property rights (IPRs), while others maintain that the expanding subject matter and geographical extent of IPRs are stifling crop research, especially research and development (R&D) dealing with developing-country crop concerns. Much of this debate relies on anecdotes and misleading or incomplete evidence on the extent and nature of the IPRs pertaining to crop technologies, including the jurisdictional extent of the property rights and their practice. In this paper we review the evidence on the scope of agricultural R&D worldwide, provide new data on the structure of crop-related IPRs, and summarize trends on the uptake of proprietary bioengineered crops.plant patents, utility patents, plant breeders' rights, crop varieties, public and private agricultural R&D, biotechnology, Research and Development/Tech Change/Emerging Technologies,

The Evolving Landscape of IP Rights for Plant Varieties in the United States, 1930-2008

The United States was the first country in the world to explicitly offer intellectual property protection for plant varieties. Beginning in 1930, asexually reproduced plants were afforded plant patent protection, in 1970 sexually propagated plants could be awarded plant variety protection certificates, and beginning in 1985, courts confirmed that varieties of all types of plants were eligible for utility patents. From 1930 to 2008, a total of 34,340 varietal rights applications were lodged. The number of rights being sought continues to grow, with 42 percent of all the varietal rights claimed since 2000. Contrary to popular perception, most of these rights are for horticultural crops (69 percent), with ornamentals accounting for the lion’s share of the horticulture-related rights (73 percent, or 50 percent of all plant rights). Food and feed crops constitute only 24 percent of the rights sought, although just two crops (corn and soybean) made up 84 percent of the 3,719 varietal rights claimed via utility patents. The structure of these rights has changed dramatically over the years. During the 1930s when the only rights on offer were plant patents, 72 percent of the rights sought were for ornamental crops and individual innovators played a substantial role (50 percent of the rights). By 2004-2008, the annual applications for plant patents had increased in number but fallen to a 60 percent share of the total rights claimed. During this recent period, utility patents were as popular as plant variety protection certificates, and ornamentals made up a large but much reduced share of the total (52 percent). Individual innovators accounted for only 12 percent of the rights, whereas the corporate sector sought the dominant share of varietal rights (82 percent in 2004-2008). These intellectual property markets are complex, with corporations, universities and other agencies seeking different types of rights for different crops.plant patents, plant variety protection, utility patents, Agricultural and Food Policy, Crop Production/Industries, Environmental Economics and Policy, Resource /Energy Economics and Policy, Q16, Q18, O32, O34,

The economics of generating and maintaining plant variety rights in China:

Notwithstanding the ambiguous research and productivity promoting effects of plant variety protections (PVPs), even in developed countries, many developing countries have adopted PVPs in the past few years to comply with their Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) obligations. Seeking and maintaining PVPs reserves options to an expected revenue stream from the future sale of protected varieties, the value of which varies for a host of reasons. In this paper we empirically examine the pattern of plant variety protection applications in China since its PVP laws were first introduced in 1997. We place those PVP rights in the context of China's present and likely future seed markets to identify the economic incentives and institutional aspects that influence decisions to develop and apply for varietal rights.intellectual property, patents, Ownership, Plant propagation, plant breeding, Trade policies, Plant introduction, Crop performance, China,

AN OPTION PERSPECTIVE ON GENERATING AND MAINTAINING PLANT VARIETY RIGHTS IN CHINA

Notwithstanding the ambiguous research and productivity promoting effects of plant variety protections (PVPs), even in developed countries, many developing countries have adopted PVPs in the past few years, in part to comply with their Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) obligations. Seeking and maintaining PVPs reserves options to an expected revenue stream from the future sale of protected varieties, the value of which varies for a host of reasons. In this paper we empirically examine the pattern of plant variety protection applications in China since its PVP laws were first introduced in 1997. We place those PVP rights in the context of China's present and likely future seed markets to identify the economic incentives and institutional influences on decisions to develop and apply for varietal rights.intellectual property rights, crop improvement, option value, seed markets, Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,

Costing the ex situ conservation of genetic resources: maize and wheat at CIMMYT

Worldwide, the number of genebanks and the amount of seed stored in them has increased substantially over the past few decades. Most attention is focused on the likely benefits from conservation, but conserving germplasm involves costs whose nature and magnitude are largely unknown. In this paper we compile and use a set of cost data for wheat and maize stored in the CIMMYT genebank to address a number of questions. What is the cost of storing an accession of either crop for one more year, or, equivalently what is the benefit in terms of cost savings from eliminating duplicate accessions from the genebank? Relatedly, what is the cost from introducing a new accession into the genebank, given the decision to store it is revisited after one year? Does it make economic sense for CIMMYT to discard accessions that may be available elsewhere? As an extension of this line of inquiry it is possible to value the benefits from either consolidating genebanks or at least networking existing banks to reduce or eliminate duplicate holdings not needed for backup safety purposes. We present estimates of the size and scale economies evident in the CIMMYT operation as a basis for assessing the economics of consolidation. Genebanks represent a commitment to conserve seeds for the very long-run. In this study we report on these long-run costs for the CIMMYT genebank costs that are sensitive to the interest rate used and the protocols for periodically replenishing accessions that are shared with others or regenerating accessions whose viability gradually diminishes with age.Germplasm conservation., Gene banks, Plant., Maize Breeding., Wheat Breeding., Rate of return.,

The SWELLS survey. IV. Precision measurements of the stellar and dark matter distributions in a spiral lens galaxy

We construct a fully self-consistent mass model for the lens galaxy J2141 at z=0.14, and use it to improve on previous studies by modelling its gravitational lensing effect, gas rotation curve and stellar kinematics simultaneously. We adopt a very flexible axisymmetric mass model constituted by a generalized NFW dark matter halo and a stellar mass distribution obtained by deprojecting the MGE fit to the high-resolution K'-band LGSAO imaging data of the galaxy, with the (spatially constant) M/L ratio as a free parameter. We model the stellar kinematics by solving the anisotropic Jeans equations. We find that the inner logarithmic slope of the dark halo is weakly constrained (gamma = 0.82^{+0.65}_{-0.54}), and consistent with an unmodified NFW profile. We infer the galaxy to have (i) a dark matter fraction within 2.2 disk radii of 0.28^{+0.15}_{-0.10}, independent of the galaxy stellar population, implying a maximal disk for J2141; (ii) an apparently uncontracted dark matter halo, with concentration c_{-2} = 7.7_{-2.5}^{+4.2} and virial velocity v_{vir} = 242_{-39}^{+44} km/s, consistent with LCDM predictions; (iii) a slightly oblate halo (q_h = 0.75^{+0.27}_{-0.16}), consistent with predictions from baryon-affected models. Comparing the stellar mass inferred from the combined analysis (log_{10} Mstar/Msun = 11.12_{-0.09}^{+0.05}) with that inferred from SPS modelling of the galaxies colours, and accounting for a cold gas fraction of 20+/-10%, we determine a preference for a Chabrier IMF over Salpeter IMF by a Bayes factor of 5.7 (substantial evidence). We infer a value beta_{z} = 1 - sigma^2_{z}/sigma^2_{R} = 0.43_{-0.11}^{+0.08} for the orbital anisotropy parameter in the meridional plane, in agreement with most studies of local disk galaxies, and ruling out at 99% CL that the dynamics of this system can be described by a two-integral distribution function. [Abridged]Comment: Accepted for publication in MNRAS. 17 pages, 9 figure

Science, Technology and Skills

The invention of agriculture that occurred around 10,000 years ago heralded a shift from nomadic hunting and gathering to more managed forms of food, feed and fibre production. The domestication of crops initially involved the saving of seed from one season for planting in subsequent years. Later, farmers purposefully selected crop varieties and so in practice began matching and, by repeated selection over many years, adapting crop genetics to the environment in which the crop was grown. From its inception, enhancing G x E (i.e., gene by environment) interactions was an intrinsic, if not defining, feature of agriculture

Photometric Catalogue of Quasars and Other Point Sources in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey

We present a catalogue of about 6 million unresolved photometric detections in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Seventh Data Release classifying them into stars, galaxies and quasars. We use a machine learning classifier trained on a subset of spectroscopically confirmed objects from 14th to 22nd magnitude in the SDSS {\it i}-band. Our catalogue consists of 2,430,625 quasars, 3,544,036 stars and 63,586 unresolved galaxies from 14th to 24th magnitude in the SDSS {\it i}-band. Our algorithm recovers 99.96% of spectroscopically confirmed quasars and 99.51% of stars to i $\sim$21.3 in the colour window that we study. The level of contamination due to data artefacts for objects beyond $i=21.3$ is highly uncertain and all mention of completeness and contamination in the paper are valid only for objects brighter than this magnitude. However, a comparison of the predicted number of quasars with the theoretical number counts shows reasonable agreement.Comment: 16 pages, Ref. No. MN-10-2382-MJ.R2, accepted for publication in MNRAS Main Journal, April 201

Surgical Treatment of Periimplantitis With Augmentative Techniques.

OBJECTIVES To address the focused question: "In patients with osseointegrated implants diagnosed with periimplantitis, what are the clinical and radiographic outcomes of augmentative surgical interventions compared with nonaugmentative surgical measures"? MATERIAL AND METHODS Literature screening was performed in MEDLINE through the PubMed database, for articles published until January 1, 2018. Human studies reporting on the clinical (ie, bleeding on probing [BOP] and probing depth [PD] changes) and/or radiographic (ie, periimplant defect reduction and/or fill) treatment outcomes after surgical augmentative periimplantitis therapy, and/or comparing augmentative and nonaugmentative surgical approaches were searched. RESULTS Thirteen comparative and 11 observational clinical studies were included. Surgical augmentative periimplantitis therapy resulted in mean BOP and PD reduction ranging from 26% to 91%, and 0.74 to 5.4 mm, respectively. The reported mean radiographic fill of intrabony defects ranged between 57% and 93.3%, and defect vertical reduction varied from 0.2 to 3.77 mm. Three randomized controlled clinical studies failed to demonstrate the superiority of augmentative therapy compared with nonaugmentative approach in terms of PD and BOP reduction. CONCLUSIONS The available evidence to support superiority of augmentative surgical techniques for periimplantitis management on the treatment outcomes over nonaugmentative methods is limited