Cultivating Innovation: Agroecology, Plant Breeding and the Challenge to Intellectual Property Law

思想的所有权--现在被称为“知识产权”或IP--如何塑造了科学、技术和社会的发展？一个新的，综合的框架来调查这个重要的问题是利兹-布里斯托尔AHRC的“拥有和否认发明”项目的主要成果之一。作为该项目的合作者之一，G。Radick率先发展了这一框架，并将其扩展到重新解释1900年左右英国植物育种科学和实践的历史转变。这个后续资助项目的目的是，以最大化吸收和效用的形式，将这项研究的见解带给有能力从中受益的受众。综合框架的核心是对狭义知识产权权利要求--专利、商标等常见的法律的工具--进行新的区分（“IP狭窄”）-以及其他更广泛的所有权主张（“知识产权广泛”），特别是声称已经发现了一些东西（“优先权声明”），并代表一个学科，声称其理论原则解释了有用的技术和技术的成功（“生产力声明”）。认识到知识产权的狭义和广义概念相互交叉、相互作用--以及它们所产生的潜在破坏性紧张关系--有助于阐明一系列问题，从将科学工作划分为“纯”或“应用”的麻烦分类，到我们文化中科学的公共权威的性质。在他自己使用技术科学中知识产权的这种扩展概念时，Radick提出，比历史学家迄今为止所怀疑的要多得多的是，世纪早期的新孟德尔遗传学依赖于对孟德尔遗传学的分布和声誉的仔细控制管理，而且非常出色（但实际上问题很大）植物品种。这个后续项目将与纽伯里有机研究中心（ORC）合作创建关于四个具体主题的面向公众的资源：i）遗传的生物学理解的变化与经济条件和植物品种营销的变化共同进化。拥有和否认发明项目为进一步探索这些问题提供了丰富的证据，这些证据可以在与ORC的合作中使用。ii）不同国家的科学家所处的专利制度与他们成功创新的可能性有关。目前，在欧洲和北美运作的知识产权制度有利于某些植物育种方法。关注知识产权和植物育种的长期历史可以激发人们对这一现状的批判性思考。iii）通常，在植物育种和一般生物科学的背景下，知识产权被理解为仅与专利有关。源自分子生物学这一权威科学的主流植物育种方法与并非如此衍生的替代方法之间的差异，为利用知识产权的扩展概念进行分析提供了理想的环境，以便再次促进批判性思维和更具创造性的讨论。iv）植物育种的历史以育种工作地点的持续转移为标志，远离农场，走向私人公司的试验田。理解这些发展需要我们关注我们对植物育种创新的理解的变化，以及如何培育和保护它。这个拟议的项目是以最近资助的，位于利兹的AHRC后续资助项目为蓝本，“战斗中的创新：第一次世界大战中的电信和知识产权“，与牛津大学科学史博物馆合作，由G. Gooday是“拥有和否认发明”项目的PI，也是这里的Co-I。

How has the ownership of ideas - 'intellectual property', or IP, as it is now called - shaped the development of science, technology and society? A new, synthetic framework for investigating this vital question was one of the major outcomes of the Leeds-Bristol AHRC 'Owning and Disowning Invention' project. As one of the co-Is on that project, Prof. G. Radick took the lead in developing the framework and also in extending it to reinterpreting historical shifts in the science and practice of plant breeding in Britain in the decades around 1900. It is the aim of this Follow-on Funding project to bring the insights of this research to audiences well placed to benefit from them, in a form that maximises both uptake and utility.At the core of the synthetic framework is a new distinction between IP claims narrowly construed - the familiar legal instruments of patents, trademarks and so on ('IP-narrow') - and other, broader sorts of ownership claims ('IP-broad'), notably claims to have discovered something first ('priority claims') and, on behalf of a discipline, claims that its theoretical principles explain the success of useful techniques and technologies ('productivity claims'). This recognition of intersecting, interacting narrow and broad concepts of IP - and also the potentially destructive tensions they engender - serves to illuminate a range of issues, from the troublesome classification of scientific work as 'pure' or 'applied' to the nature of the public authority of the sciences in our culture. In his own use of this expanded conception of IP in the technosciences, Radick has suggested that, far more than historians have suspected hitherto, the new Mendelian genetics of the early twentieth century depended on the carefully controlled management of the distribution and reputation of putatively Mendelian, and putatively excellent (but in fact highly problematic) plant varieties.This Follow-on project will work in collaboration with the Newbury-based Organic Research Centre (ORC) to create public-facing resources on four specific themes:i) changes in the biological understanding of heredity have coevolved with changes in the economic conditions and marketing of plant varieties. The Owning and Disowning Invention project has opened a rich body of evidence for the further exploration of these problems, which can be used throughout the collaboration with the ORC.ii) the patent regimes under which scientists in different countries operate is related to the likelihood of their producing successful innovations. Currently, the IP system operating across Europe and North America favours some plant breeding methods over others. Attention to the long-run history of IP and plant breeding can stimulate critical thinking about this status quo.iii) typically, in the context of plant breeding in particular and the biosciences in general, IP has been understood as only relating to patents. The differences between mainstream plant breeding methods deriving from the prestige science of molecular biology and alternative methods not so derived presents an ideal setting for analysis making use of the expanded conception of IP in order, again, to promote critical thinking and more creative discussion.iv) the history of plant breeding has been marked by a persistent shift in the location of breeding work, away from the farm and towards the trialling fields of private companies. Understanding these developments requires a focus upon our changed understanding of what plant breeding innovation looks like, and how it might be fostered and protected.This proposed project is modelled closely on a recently funded, Leeds-based AHRC Follow-on Funding project, 'Innovating in Combat: Telecommunications and Intellectual Property in the First World War', partnered with the Museum of the History of Science at the University of Oxford, and led by Prof. G. Gooday, who was PI on the Owning and Disowning Invention project, and Co-I here.