Biotechnology, Plant Breeding, and Intellectual Property

Social and Ethical Dimensions

Bibliographic Data

ID5198517
AuthorsFrederick H Buttel (Cornell University), Jill Belsky (Cornell University)
Year1987
Volume12
Issue1
Pages31-49
Publication date1987-01-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueScience Technology & Human Values (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0162-2439 • E-ISSN: 1552-8251
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/016224398701200104
OpenAlexW2490503137
LanguageEN
Citations received9

The past half dozen years have witnessed in many countries the mobilization of public interest groups that seek to reverse global trends toward proprietary protection of plants and plant parts. Numerous articles have appeared in the popular, trade, and science press concerning the benefits and costs of plant variety protection and plant patenting. Private sector seed and agricultural biotechnology companies have found it necessary to defend the social desirability and ethical neutrality of proprietary protection to a degree that would be uncommon for other types of industries with product lines protected by comparable intellectual property arrangements. Although the scope and intensity of current debates over proprietary protection of plants are unprecedented, there has actually been a long history of struggle in the United States and other industrial countries over the means by which private firms could profitably market and sell plants.' Indeed, there are a number of similarities between these historical struggles during the first three decades of the 20th century and those that have appeared since the late 1970s. As we will

Agriculture · Biology · Business · Intellectual property · Neutrality · Plant variety · Political science · Private sector · Animal Genetics and Reproduction · CRISPR and Genetic Engineering · Genetically Modified Organisms Research · Law · Biotechnology

Tools

Open DOISci-Hub