Biotech Updates

Seed Wars: Controversies and Cases on Plant Genetic Resources and Intellectual Property

August 15, 2008

The book Seed Wars is a comprehensive overview of the current domestic and international legal controversies regarding intellectual property protections for plant genetic resources (PGRs) over the past three decades: (1) the rise of intellectual property protections for plant varieties and the enclosure of the “genetic” commons; (2) the subsequent move of the agro-chemical industry from manufacturing fertilizers, pesticides, and herbicides to “manufacturing” seeds in the context of industrial agriculture; and (3) the emergence of overlapping regimes of domestic and multilateral treaties such as the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property (TRIPS, 1994), the Convention on Biodiversity (CBD, 1992) and the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources (ITPGR, 2004) from the 1990s on. Complimentary copies are available for teaching professors and orders can be placed at:   http://www.cap-press.com/books/1431