Periodic Reporting for period 1 - MICROB-COM (Microbial Commons: Building a legal instrument for farmers' rights on agricultural microbial resources)
Période du rapport: 2021-04-15 au 2023-04-14
The issue being addressed
The agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual property rights (TRIPS) allows member states to exclude plants and animal resources, but not microbes, from patenting with an alternate sui-generis system of protection. This can have impact on global food security because microorganisms are of particular importance in agriculture through their roles in nutrient cycling and plant growth promotion.
MICROB-COM made a critical evaluation of the appropriateness of the existing patent regime on agricultural microbes and, drawing from developments in International Environmental Law recognising the rights of nature, has explored the need for amendment of existing patent laws on agricultural microbes.
Societal Importance
New biotechnological innovations, protected by patents, are being employed in agriculture to increase global food production. Increasing penetration of intellectual property rights (IPR) regimes in agriculture has meant that living resources that were earlier perceived to be part of common heritage have been subject to exclusion and privatization. Patents over agricultural microbes can potentially restrict access of farmers to beneficial symbiotic and free-living microorganisms in the soil and impact global food security by making agriculture expensive and non-profitable to smaller farmers. It is therefore important that barriers to easy and economically viable access of microbial resources in sustainable agriculture are addressed on a priority basis.
The following objectives were envisaged:
• Analysis of the normative implications of the microbial commons for law.
• The deficiencies of the Convention on Biological Diversity and the failure to incorporate rights of nature in the context of
benefit sharing.
• Developing a model microbial rights instrument recognizing intellectual property rights of nature’s ecological processes
in the evolution of beneficial traits in agricultural microbes.
The agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual property rights (TRIPS) allows member states to exclude plants and animal resources, but not microbes, from patenting with an alternate sui-generis system of protection. This can have impact on global food security because microorganisms are of particular importance in agriculture through their roles in nutrient cycling and plant growth promotion.
MICROB-COM made a critical evaluation of the appropriateness of the existing patent regime on agricultural microbes and, drawing from developments in International Environmental Law recognising the rights of nature, has explored the need for amendment of existing patent laws on agricultural microbes.
Societal Importance
New biotechnological innovations, protected by patents, are being employed in agriculture to increase global food production. Increasing penetration of intellectual property rights (IPR) regimes in agriculture has meant that living resources that were earlier perceived to be part of common heritage have been subject to exclusion and privatization. Patents over agricultural microbes can potentially restrict access of farmers to beneficial symbiotic and free-living microorganisms in the soil and impact global food security by making agriculture expensive and non-profitable to smaller farmers. It is therefore important that barriers to easy and economically viable access of microbial resources in sustainable agriculture are addressed on a priority basis.
The following objectives were envisaged:
• Analysis of the normative implications of the microbial commons for law.
• The deficiencies of the Convention on Biological Diversity and the failure to incorporate rights of nature in the context of
benefit sharing.
• Developing a model microbial rights instrument recognizing intellectual property rights of nature’s ecological processes
in the evolution of beneficial traits in agricultural microbes.
MICROB-COM, recognizing the interdisciplinary nature of the project objectives, combined desk-based review of literature pertaining to microbial ecology, genomics and patent laws with empirical research on microbial applications in agriculture and ecosystem management. Experiments were designed using local crops and symbiotic arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) as a model system to demonstrate how these organisms when applied as agricultural inputs can offer economic and sustainable options to manage agroecosystems. These works have been published in the Journal of Hazardous Materials, Environmental Pollution and Mycorrhiza with respective impact factors of 14.2 9.98 and 3.856. These articles demonstrate the ecosystem function of symbiotic soil fungi, how they restore damaged soils, regenerate agricultural health by making nutrients available for crops and contribute to human nourishment. These fungi, along with other associated microbes are important contributors in achieving Zero hunger- sustainable development goal number 2. A book chapter that critically reviewed the role of arbuscular mycorrhizas in sustainable climate smart agriculture was also written (in Press). A critical evaluation of the research outcomes from the empirical works and desk-based review of literature indicated that a commons regime only shifts ‘ownership’ from private to community and may still ignore the claims of farmers and indigenous people to access and use microbial and biological resources. It fails to offer level playing fields between financially and informationally strong corporations and disadvantaged Indigenous and other globally disempowered groups. Moreover, it is still part of a wider anthropocentric framing and does not address the ethical question of commodifying living entities of nature. Therefore, MICROB-COM aimed at incorporating into patent laws, the developments in International Environmental Law that had initiated attempts to recognise rights of nature in its own capacity independent of human existence. MICROB-COM shifted narrative from a human oriented Commons claim over biological resources to developing a legal paradigm to recognise nature’s intellectual property rights on evolution of beneficial traits.
Research outcomes have been disseminated through publications in peer-reviewed academic Journals and a book chapter. MICROB-COM also engaged with stakeholders (farmers, researchers, legal scholars) through popular public disseminations. A workshop was organized at the University of Strathclyde to build awareness among farmers to: (i) benefits of applications of microbial inputs to improve crop growth, yields and protection from pathogens, and (ii) the legal risks associated with patented microorganisms.
Research outcomes have been disseminated through publications in peer-reviewed academic Journals and a book chapter. MICROB-COM also engaged with stakeholders (farmers, researchers, legal scholars) through popular public disseminations. A workshop was organized at the University of Strathclyde to build awareness among farmers to: (i) benefits of applications of microbial inputs to improve crop growth, yields and protection from pathogens, and (ii) the legal risks associated with patented microorganisms.
The progress achieved in the project is still beyond the state-of-the art in both intellectual property and environmental laws.
In terms of intellectual property law, MICROB-COM centred on a critical review of developments in microbial ecology and genomics, has built a credible legal narrative to show that patent laws have stagnated at developments of the 1980s. MICROB-COM focussed attention on providing legal recognition to innovative characteristics of evolutionary processes of ecology. These processes are novel, have utility for both the microbe as well as to humans and represent an inventive step ‘authored’ by nature. MICROB-COM laid the legal argument that these characteristics satisfy the conditions for grant of patent under existing patent laws. However, patent laws are incapable of recognising non-human inventers. Therefore MICROB-COM demonstrated how humans and ecological processes and constituents of nature are intimately linked in a holobiontic relationship. This intimacy has been equated with kinship in several human cultures and allowed for increasing recognition of legal rights for constituents of nature. MICROB-COM employed these developments from Environmental Law and argued that rights of nature will inherently include the right to intellectual property for evolution of beneficial traits.
Socially, legally and economically, the impact outcomes of MICROB-COM have great innovation potential in effecting access and benefit sharing from living resources in general and microbial resources in particular. If nature’s rights are extended to the domain of IPR law, access to microbial and biological resources would not be restricted to private patent holders. Because humans are also a part of nature, benefits from IPR rights owned by nature would be available to entire human species rather than to a single individual. This would result in biological resources shifting back to the common heritage of humankind. The present IPR framework enables patent holders of biological resources to restrict downstream access to patented material research. Transfer of IP rights for evolution of beneficial traits through non-human ecological processes to nature, will also remove the hurdles created by such patent entanglements for use of patented material in research and provide economically viable application in agriculture through reductions in input costs. By making microbial and biological material easily available for agriculture, a revised IPR regime that recognises nature’s role in evolution of beneficial traits will contribute to increased global food security, equity and human well-being.
In terms of intellectual property law, MICROB-COM centred on a critical review of developments in microbial ecology and genomics, has built a credible legal narrative to show that patent laws have stagnated at developments of the 1980s. MICROB-COM focussed attention on providing legal recognition to innovative characteristics of evolutionary processes of ecology. These processes are novel, have utility for both the microbe as well as to humans and represent an inventive step ‘authored’ by nature. MICROB-COM laid the legal argument that these characteristics satisfy the conditions for grant of patent under existing patent laws. However, patent laws are incapable of recognising non-human inventers. Therefore MICROB-COM demonstrated how humans and ecological processes and constituents of nature are intimately linked in a holobiontic relationship. This intimacy has been equated with kinship in several human cultures and allowed for increasing recognition of legal rights for constituents of nature. MICROB-COM employed these developments from Environmental Law and argued that rights of nature will inherently include the right to intellectual property for evolution of beneficial traits.
Socially, legally and economically, the impact outcomes of MICROB-COM have great innovation potential in effecting access and benefit sharing from living resources in general and microbial resources in particular. If nature’s rights are extended to the domain of IPR law, access to microbial and biological resources would not be restricted to private patent holders. Because humans are also a part of nature, benefits from IPR rights owned by nature would be available to entire human species rather than to a single individual. This would result in biological resources shifting back to the common heritage of humankind. The present IPR framework enables patent holders of biological resources to restrict downstream access to patented material research. Transfer of IP rights for evolution of beneficial traits through non-human ecological processes to nature, will also remove the hurdles created by such patent entanglements for use of patented material in research and provide economically viable application in agriculture through reductions in input costs. By making microbial and biological material easily available for agriculture, a revised IPR regime that recognises nature’s role in evolution of beneficial traits will contribute to increased global food security, equity and human well-being.