People Plants and the Law
Novelties, Frauds, and Protections: The Fruit Business in Nineteenth-Century America
ZoomIn the United States through the 1830s, commercial fruit nurseries were few in number, served largely local markets, and, facing little competition, did little in their catalogues to differentiate and brand their products. Beginning in the 1820s, the transportation revolution, the migrations westward, and the creation of relentlessly expanding markets steadily enlarged competition and put a premium on the innovation
Biocultural Rights, Indigenous Peoples, and Local Communities: Protecting Culture and the Environment
ZoomThis lecture will investigate the role of biocultural community protocols in safeguarding the biocultural rights of Indigenous and local communities. In so doing, the lecture will analyse the nature and role of biocultural community protocols within the context of access to genetic resources and benefit sharing, linking this to the rise of biocultural jurisprudence and the interlinkages between cultural diversity
Reconsidering Japan’s Plant Patent Movement: National Histories, Colonial Legacies, and Transpacific Dynamics
ZoomPresented by Kjell Ericson from Kyoto University. A movement calling for plants to be treated as patentable inventions emerged in 1970s Japan. Among the loudest proponents of reform were people who had long engaged in the breeding and propagation of fruits and flowers, in certain cases far beyond Japan's post-1945 borders. My presentation contextualizes the activities of the plant patent
Seeds as deep time technologies
ZoomPresented by Courtney Fullilove from Wesleyan University. This talk aims to unite diverse insights in the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences by theorizing seeds as deep time technologies. Regarding the seed as a technology allows us to understand actors and processes of improvement that constitute the material form of the seed and its demarcation according to commercial and scientific
The Beyond Intellectual Property Moment in Historical Context
ZoomPresented by Graham Dutfield from the University of Leeds. In 1996, a book called “Beyond Intellectual Property” was published by International Development Research Centre. A law book written by two people entirely unschooled in law, of whom one is the present speaker, this was hardly a world-changing event. The book was very much of its time, being published soon after
People-Plant Interrelationships and the Law – but whose law? Expanding the conversation through Ethnobiology and Biocultural Ethics
ZoomPresented by Dr. Kelly Bannister, Co-Director, POLIS Project on Ecological Governance, Centre for Global Studies at the University of Victoria. “Variety is the spice of life” is a well known phrase that can be traced back to a poem called The Task published in 1785 by William Cowper. Little did Cowper know that he was onto something bigger than just pleasure! A
Rethinking biodiversity-based economies for justice and conservation
ZoomPresented by Rachel Wynberg, DST/NRF Bio-Economy Chair and Professor in the Department of Environmental and Geographical Sciences, the University of Cape Town and Dr. Sarah Laird, Co-Director, People and Plants International, the University of Kent. Rachel Wynberg and Sarah Laird presently co-direct a process of "rethinking" the relationship between conservation and equity, and the biodiversity-based economy, including access and benefit-sharing. https://rethinking-abs.org/
WIPO Treaty on TKGR 2024: Constructing Guidelines for Disclosure and ABS
ZoomPresented by Uma Suthersanen, Professor of Global Intellectual Property Law at the Queen Mary University of London In May 2024, a new international treaty was adopted which introduced a new, and hitherto controversial, norm namely the international obligation for applicants to disclose the source or origin of genetic resources (GR) and/or the associated traditional knowledge (TK) in patent applications (Article
Experiences of scientists supporting community engagement regarding crop genetic resources and the law: examples from traditionally based maize systems in North America
ZoomPresented by Daniela Soleri, Alma Piñeyro, and Emmanuel Carlos González Ortega. In situ conserved crop genetic resources (CGRs) occur in the form of native or local crop varieties, developed and cultivated by peasant/farming communities, including indigenous communities across North America. The global significance of these CGRs has led to the construction of legal frameworks regarding core issues of access, use,
Re-imagining (Re)production in Intellectual Property Law: Proprietary Fruit and the Making of Botanical Kinds
ZoomPresented by Susannah Chapman. Over the past several decades, many fruit breeding programs have begun to commercialize new varieties via the strategic use to two legal techniques: the use of plant variety protection—coupled with contracts to create small “clubs” of select growers—and the use of branding to foster ready consumer demand for the protected fruit that the club would produce.
