Social accountability of universities and training institutions
Addressing global health inequities: an open licensing approach for university innovations
Universities can help reduce barriers to accessing medicines and undertaking research in developing countries
Authors:
A. Kapczynski; S. Chaifetz; Z. Katz; Y. Benkler
Publisher:
Berkeley Technology Law Journal, University of Calafornia, Berkeley, 2005
This article, published in the Berkeley Technology Law Journal, demonstrates the potential of public sector institutions, particularly universities, to eliminate the barriers that patents pose on access to medicines and research in developing countries. It analyses the role that patents play in contributing to the access and research and development (R&D) gaps, and reviews existing proposals to eliminate the burdens that patents can impose on poor people. These include: top-down change by governments such as changes to international trade agreements and alterations in national patent laws; and private sector voluntary concessions.
The article finds that neither governments nor the private sector will act spontaneously and systematically to close the R&D gap or eliminate costs created by the global intellectual property rights regime. The authors propose alternative initiatives where participants, such as universities and other public sector institutions, change their practices to reduce barriers posed by patents and copyrights. These proposals are "Equitable Access” licensing - where intellectual property rights are used to secure freedom for an open class of potential users; and “Neglected Disease” licensing - designed to provide those engaged in neglected disease research, the freedom to experiment on and with proprietary university technologies.
