:: Developing Effective Approaches to Access to Genetic Resources

Running through intellectual property rights topics, this paper focuses on a new international regime, whose idea is to impose conditions on use of patents on inventions developed from genetic materials. Suggestions include approval for uses of products and processes patented from research on genetic materials. Others are to require in patent applications disclosure of the origin of genetic material as well as traditional knowledge in past use of such material. According to the author, the question that the world now faces is which path to take? Market-based contractual arrangements enforced by agreements under national laws or international mechanisms to regulate patent laws to enforce rules on access to genetic resources? It is the position of this paper that market-based approaches offer the best hope for achieving the goals, while an approach of regulating patents risks destroying benefits for everyone.