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The National Research Council was organized by the National Academy of Sciences in 1916 to associate the broad community of science and technology with the Academy's purposes of furthering knowledge and advising the federal government. Functioning in accordance with general policies determined by the Academy, the Council has become the principal operating agency of both the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering in providing services to the government, the public, and the scientific and engineering communities. The Council is administered jointly by both Academies and the Institute of Medicine. Dr. Bruce M. Alberts and Dr. William A. Wulf are chairman and vice-chairman, respectively, of the National Research Council.
This report was prepared with funds provided by the Office of Energy Research and the Office of Health and Environmental Research of the U.S. Department of Energy under agreement number DE-FG02-94ER61939.
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STEERING COMMITTEE
MICHAEL T. CLEGG,
Chair,
University of California, Riverside
ELLIOT M. MEYEROWITZ,
California Institute of Technology, Pasadena
RONALD R. SEDEROFF,
North Carolina State University
Science Writer
ROBERT POOL,
Arlington, Virginia
NRC Staff
JANET E. JOY,
Study Director
MARY JANE LETAW,
Staff Officer
JULIEMARIE GOUPIL,
Project Assistant
BOARD ON AGRICULTURE
DALE E. BAUMAN,
Chair,
Cornell University
JOHN M. ANTLE,
Montana State University
SANDRA S. BATIE,
Michigan State University
MAY R. BERENBAUM,
University of Illinois
LEONARD S. BULL,
North Carolina State University
WILLIAM B. DELAUDER,
Delaware State College
ANTHONY S. EARL,
Quarles & Brady Law Firm, Madison, Wisconsin
ESSEX E. FINNEY, JR.,
U.S. Department of Agriculture, Mitchellville, Maryland
CORNELIA B. FLORA,
Iowa State University
GEORGE R. HALLBERG,
University of Iowa
RICHARD R. HARWOOD,
Michigan State University
T. KENT KIRK,
University of Wisconsin
HARLEY W. MOON,
Iowa State University
WILLIAM L. OGREN,
University of Illinois
GEORGE E. SEIDEL, JR.,
Colorado State University
JOHN W. SUTTIE,
University of Wisconsin
JAMES J. ZUICHES,
Washington State University
NRC Staff
MICHAEL J. PHILLIPS,
Director
SHIRLEY B. THATCHER,
Senior Project Assistant
BOARD ON BIOLOGY
MICHAEL T. CLEGG,
Chair,
University of California, Riverside
JOHN C. AVISE,
University of Georgia, Athens
DAVID EISENBERG,
University of California, Los Angeles
GERALD D. FISCHBACH,
Harvard Medical School
DAVID J. GALAS,
Darwin Technologies, Seattle, Washington
DAVID V. GOEDDEL,
Tularik, Inc., San Francisco
ARTURO GOMEZ-POMPA,
University of California, Riverside
COREY S. GOODMAN,
University of California, Berkeley
BRUCE R. LEVIN,
Emory University, Atlanta
OLGA F. LINARES,
Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, Balboa, Panama
ELLIOT M. MEYEROWITZ,
California Institute of Technology, Pasadena
ROBERT T. PAINE,
University of Washington, Seattle
RONALD R. SEDEROFF,
North Carolina State University
DANIEL S. SIMBERLOFF,
Florida State University
ROBERT R. SOKAL,
State University of New York, Stony Brook
SHIRLEY M. TILGHMAN,
Princeton University
RAYMOND L. WHITE,
University of Utah, Salt Lake City
NRC Staff
ERIC A. FISHER,
Director *
KATHLEEN A. BEIL,
Project Assistant
* |
Through December 1996. |
COMMISSION ON LIFE SCIENCES
THOMAS D. POLLARD,
Chair,
The Salk Institute for Biological Studies, La Jolla, California
FREDERICK R. ANDERSON,
Cadwalder, Wickersham and Taft, Washington, D.C.
JOHN C. BAILAR III,
University of Chicago
PAUL BERG,
Stanford University
JOHN E. BURRIS,
Marine Biological Laboratory, Woods Hole, Massachusetts
SHARON L. DUNWOODY,
University of Wisconsin, Madison
URSULA W. GOODENOUGH,
Washington University, St. Louis, Missouri
HENRY W. HEIKKINEN,
University of Northern Colorado, Greeley
HANS J. KENDE,
Michigan State University, Lansing
SUSAN E. LEEMAN,
Boston University School of Medicine
THOMAS E. LOVEJOY,
Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.
DONALD R. MATTISON,
University of Pittsburgh
JOSEPH E. MURRAY,
Wellesley Hills, Massachusetts
EDWARD E. PENHOET,
Chiron Corporation, Emeryville, California
EMIL A. PFITZER,
Research Institute for Fragrance Materials, Inc., Hackensack, New Jersey
MALCOLM C. PIKE,
Norris/University of Southern California, Comprehensive Cancer Center, Los Angeles
HENRY C. PITOT III,
University of Wisconsin, Madison
JOHNATHAN M. SAMET,
John Hopkins University, Baltimore
CHARLES F. STEVENS,
The Salk Institute for Biological Studies, La Jolla, California
JOHN L. VANDERBERG,
Southwest Foundation for Biomedical Research, San Antonio, Texas
NRC Staff
PAUL GILMAN,
Executive Director
SOLVEIG M. PADILLA,
Administrative Assistant
Preface
In 1993 the National Research Council's Board on Biology established a series of fora on biotechnology. The purpose of the discussions is to foster open communication among scientists, administrators, policymakers, and others engaged in biotechnology research, development, and commercialization. The neutral setting offered by the National Research Council is intended to promote mutual understanding among government, industry, and academe and to help develop imaginative approaches to problem solving.
For the first forum, held on November 5, 1996, the Board on Biology collaborated with the Board on Agriculture to focus on intellectual property rights issues surrounding plant biotechnology. It was suggested that plant biotechnologies have not developed with the same vigor as might have been expected, given recent progress in molecular biology and by comparison to biomedical biotechnology. It was hoped that a forum could clarify intellectual property issues among research collaborators and potential impacts on advances in plant molecular biology.
Participation at the “Forum on Intellectual Property Rights and Plant Biotechnology” by representatives of the U.S. Department of Energy, U.S. Department of Agriculture, National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health, and U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) suggests that intellectual property rights issues are important to many federal agencies. Forum participants agreed that exploration of successful technology transfer models would benefit publicprivate research collaborations. Executives from biotechnology firms raised concerns that universities overestimate the value of intellectual property in the mar-
ketplace. Scientists emphasized the need for a research exemption to prevent intellectual property rights from negatively impacting the research environment.
Examination of intellectual property rights also has been a focus of other activities of the Board on Biology. In 1993 Harold Varmus, chair of the Board on Biology at that time, headed an effort to discuss sharing of reagents associated with transgenic mice. More recently, the board organized a forum in November 1995 to examine the effects of intellectual property protection on the development, dissemination, and utilization of research tools such as expressed sequence tags and the polymerase chain reaction. It is anticipated that the present forum proceedings will generate further interest in intellectual property rights and other issues of biotechnology.
Michael T. Clegg, Chair
Board on Biology