Intellectual property rights: Implications for the Canola sector and publicly funded research

This paper reviews various vehicles to protect intellectual property in Canada including plant Breeders' Rights. The experience to date following implementation of the Canadian Plant Breeders' Rights Act indicates that for crop agriculture, the majority of plant protection certificates were granted to canola, followed by potato and soybean. Fewer protection certificates were granted to wheat, barley apples and berries. Several canola protection certificates consisted of hybrid varieties that were developed by private breeders. Ten private companies accounted for most of the the plant protection certificates issued for canola. For canola patents, over 200 were filed in Canada during the 1986-97 period. Biotechnology patents numbered slightly over 100, with most of them comprising new plants, hybrid processes, nucleotide sequences, polypeptides, plant promoters, regulators and methods to produce improved fatty acid profiles. A large proportion of patent owners were transnational corporations or joint venture operations that controlled the distribution of identity preserved products from seed to end user. The paper highlights how publicly funded research has responded to greater investments in private plant breeding and suggests what policies may be necessary to ensure that maximum public benefits are achieved as a result of strengthened intellectual property right protection.