Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
9.4.4 Addressing benefit-sharing
From the standpoint of feasible approaches to dealing with benefit-sharing in relation to
marine genetic resources, this chapter has emphasized that it is often difficult to establish
whether a given marine genetic resource was collected within or beyond national jurisdic-
tion. Therefore, the introduction of a mechanism that would allow the disclosure of, inter
alia, the geographic coordinates of sample collection locations, would provide greater legal
certainty for all those concerned with research and development. Such information should
follow all samples or specimens of the collected material throughout the product develop-
ment chain, including for specimens held by
ex situ
culture collections. In the latter case,
this could be done, for instance, by quoting the specimens' unique identifier numbers, which
should be linked to relevant documentation. Besides, such information should be readily
available at any stage of research, development, pre-commercialization, and commercializ-
ation.
Interestingly, the recent renewal, in September 2013, of a new negotiating mandate for
the World Intellectual Property Organization's Intergovernmental Committee on Intellectu-
al Property, Genetic Resources, Traditional Knowledge and Folklore, in conjunction with
the WIPO General Assembly's decision to postpone until 2014 whether to convene a dip-
lomatic conference (for the adoption of new treaties for the protection of the above subject
matter), signals that policy makers are still divided on the most appropriate legal and policy
responses to stop 'biopiracy', including on the issue of disclosure of origins or legal proven-
lar, Article 4 of the Consolidated Document Relating to Intellectual Property and Genetic
Resources (February 7, 2014) sets out a number of exceptions and limitations concerning
the proposed patent disclosure requirements. There appears to be a convergence of views
on excluding the application of this new instrument to genetic resources from areas beyond
national jurisdiction.
If this were not the case, then the disclosure requirements would broadly promote syn-
ergies with the implementation of the 2010 Nagoya Protocol, in particular with the ob-
