[Ip-health] Syngenta AG on patent pools and prizes

[Thiru Balasubramaniam]

  http://www.keionline.org/blogs/2009/07/16/syngenta-prizes/


Syngenta AG on patent pools and prizes
By thiru, on July 16th, 2009

On July 14, 2009, at the WIPO Conference on Intellectual Property and
Public Policy Issues, Michael Kock (Global Head IP Seeds and
Biotechnology at Syngenta International AG) underscored that today=92s
global challenges can only dealt with in an efficient manner by
creating innovation networks which included the reward of substantial
amounts of money to solve technical challenges and problems.

Syngenta International AG, one of the largest agri-businesses in the
world. According to its corporate website, Syngenta was created in
November 2000 when =93Novartis and AstraZeneca merged their
agribusinesses to form Syngenta, the first global group focusing
exclusively on agribusiness.=94

In a panel entitled Patents and Strategies for Food Security, Dr. Kock
described patent pools, collaborative innovation networks and prizes
as better ways of harnessing and leveraging innovation. In describing
Syngenta=92s work on prizes, he mentioned Syngenta=92s collaboration with
Innocentive.

Here are some relevant extracts from his speech which your blogger has
endeavoured to reproduce from an audio file.

     =93Let me look a little bit into the future and how we can make
best use of the IP system as it exists today.

     We heard today the talk about patent pools, in the seed area in
some areas that might be an adequate solution especially when we are
talking about enabling technologies.

     But also, modern systems, how to leverage, how to harness
innovation in a better way are required, However, all these systems
really need to be underpinned by solid IP protection systems.

     Like for instance, innovation networks. People say that most of
the smart people do not work in your own company. The research pool
outside of the company is vast. And I believe that the challenges of
today we can only really cope in an efficient way if you build
innovation networks.

     So, we are trying with it some of the providers like, for
instance, Innocentive, by using, building networks with innovators all
over the world. How does that work?

     Well, we post a challenge, a question, a problem on the internet,
it=92s open participation, Everybody can tap into that, and provide
solutions. Solutions are selected and rewarded and quite sizable
amounts of money are paid then to the inventors. We see a lot of the
inventors coming from countries like India for instance, or China, or
even from Africa, South America, all over the world. In many cases we
have follow up cooperation with these people, so it does not stop with
the solution of the problem but goes further into the future.=94

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Thiru Balasubramaniam
Geneva Representative
Knowledge Ecology International (KEI)
thiru@keionline.org


Tel: +41 22 791 6727
Mobile: +41 76 508 0997