On November 10, 2005 the third in a series of HQPA sponsored workshops was held in Montreal. The conference was created by the Comparative intellectual property issues in agricultural biotechnology AFMNet project group. The conference, entitled "Intellectual Property: Foods and Materials Research", focused on the intellectual property issues facing AFMNet researchers specifically. This topic is broad and the agenda reflected the wide variety of topics and concerns raised by intellectual property in the research sphere, moving from basic information about existing intellectual property regimes to ethical issues of patenting and practical intellectual property management considerations for the Network as a whole. A variety of speakers were invited to participate at the conference, including academics from a variety of Canadian institutions, a patent practitioner, a representative from McGill's Office of Technology Transfer, and a European scholar. Each speaker presented a unique view and important information about intellectual property and its relation to research projects to the participants.

The atmosphere of the conference was interactive and those in attendance actively participated in all sessions. The purpose of the conference was not only to offer information about the possible forms of intellectual property rights which may be attained by researchers in relation to aspects of their projects, but also to discuss equitable management of intellectual property. Often intellectual property owners are expected to jealously guard their rights and use them to restrict the access of other persons to their work, however, the conference tried to show that this is not the only possible application of intellectual property rights. Moreover, within the Network a form of access which is more free between researchers may be more appropriate. Possible strategies for the intellectual property within a research project and within the Network were addressed. The result was that participants went home having gathered a great deal of information and with much food for thought.

Any researchers who were unable to attend, but would be interested in getting more information about the intellectual property rights which may be sought for a research project and the various strategies for managing these rights should contact Karen Durell (karen.durell@mail.mcgill.ca), Roxanne Kaminiski (roxanne.kaminski@usask.ca) or Lori Sheremeta (lsheremeta@shaw.ca).

Agenda (PDF)