Equitable Sharing of Benefits from Biodiversity-Based Innovation : Some Reflections under the Shadow of a Neem Tree

Biodiversity-based innovation as a cooperative tradeoff between developed and developing countries. As everybody knows, much advanced innovation in the pharmaceutical sector, as well as in the agricultural field (concerning seeds, in particular) is based on germplasm (the physical embodiment of so-called biodiversity). Much of this resource “wealth,” which rarely survives in developed countries, has been preserved by farmers in developing countries “for cultural reasons which may escape those of us who equate wisdom to economic calculus.” Such innovation is typically based on cooperation between developed countries and developing countries. The former possess the technology that enables them to develop new products for mass consumption (more advanced and efficient drugs, healthier and more resistant or abundant food) from the germplasm provided by plant and animal genetic resources that the latter have preserved, and made available. The end result can, of course, be patented: for example, the patenting of “an invention based on biological material of plant or animal origin” is expressly permitted by the European Directive on Biodiversity of 1998, and it is commonly allowed in most non-EU countries, including the U.S. and Japan. Thanks to patent protection, biodiversity-related innovation – chiefly concerning the pharmaceutical and the agricultural industries – can yield potentially very high benefits, both in strictly economic terms (returns from sales and/or royalties) and in terms of technical and scientific progress (further impulse to R&D activities) and industrial and commercial advancement.