Kirkhouse Trust Intellectual Property Statement

Overview

This statement sets forth The Kirkhouse Trust's expectations regarding protection of intellectual property (IP) resulting from work it funds. We expect each Kirkhouse Trust Grantee and its partners to subscribe to this policy and to base its IP policies on the principles described below. Intellectual Property is a term that includes all the products of creativity, invention, and know-how as well as biological materials and devices. Means of protecting property that results in the creation of intellectual property rights (IPR) can include patents, trade secrets, and copyright. Access to protected IP often involves the use of various agreements, such as License or Royalty Agreements to control their distribution. IP assets such as cell lines, plant varieties, or monoclonal antibodies often are not protected formally and their dissemination can be controlled by material transfer agreements, between the providing and receiving parties. Biological materials are often subject to international and national legislation governing the ownership of biodiversity assets.

The Trust's main activity is agricultural crop improvement research for the developing world. To this end, the Trust wishes to encourage and support the free flow of advanced scientific knowledge and research materials, primarily in the form of public goods. We also believe it is important to conserve and use genetic resources, while upholding national and international biodiversity regulations.

Policy on Protection of IP

The Kirkhouse Trust seeks to contribute to the security of food production and human nutrition in the developing countries of Asia and Africa through sustained support of research and training that is closely and strategically linked to issues of food crop production in those countries. The Trust requires that knowledge and materials resulting from the research and training that it funds be used for the maximum public benefit of resource-poor people in less developed countries. Results of research supported by the Trust should contribute, through a series of collaborative projects and transfers of technology, to the production of improved seed and other material and know-how used by farmers. Participants in the Trust's projects must commit to facilitating the sharing and transfer of technology and research products for both research and commercial use benefiting resource-poor people in developing countries. Kirkhouse Trust Grantees should also use IP that belongs to others, in a responsible manner that respects the rights of the owners.

Implementation of this Policy

Through implementation of this policy, we expect grantees to increase their capacity to understand the various approaches to, advantages of, and limitations surrounding legal protection of IP in the context of their research, institution and country.

In doing so, projects shall ensure that ownership of all IPR arising directly or indirectly from the project is equitably allocated in any partnerships. Equitable allocation considers:

• the intellectual contribution of each partner in a collaboration to the ongoing project (foreground IP);
• the contribution of intellectual property, materials, research effort, and preparatory work of each partner brought to the project (background IP);
• the facilities provided by each partner;
• to a lesser degree, the financial contribution of each partner;
• and other considerations determined by the partners to be relevant.

Grantees should be guided by the following principles in developing their plan for protection of IP:

1. Ownership

With some exceptions, the Kirkhouse Trust does not hold or claim ownership rights over IP or IPR resulting from research it funds . The Trust instead requires that investigators and research institutions it supports protect their Kirkhouse-funded IP only if protection is needed to ensure that this IP will be available for their own future research and for public-sector benefit. All IP arising from Kirkhouse-funded projects should be clearly identified and inventoried to assure that ownership is clearly documented. The Trust requires that valid and enforceable mechanisms be in place to ensure that inventions, improved germplasm, know-how, and materials developed with funding from the Kirkhouse Trust be protected from any limitations on their use to advance the causes of food security and the improvement of the lives of poor people around the world. In some cases, the interest of food security and the improvement of the lives of the poor can best be advanced by placing the results of work supported by the Trust rapidly in the public domain, such as through scientific publication. In such cases, appropriate publication effectively prevents others from patenting the same or similar inventions.

In other cases, the public interest will be advanced by applying for statutory protection, such as patents owned by or assigned to public institutions. In these cases, the Trust requires that mechanisms be adopted so that inventors will disclose, license, or assign ownership of their rights to their invention to their public-sector employer, or, where appropriate, to another institution whose mandate for a transfer of rights is to benefit resource-poor people in the developing countries. When rights are allocated in this way, employment agreements or other forms of commitment should be in place between the investigators and the research institutions, ensuring that any IP generated through work funded by the Trust will be appropriately managed according to the IP Plan developed by the Grantees and project partners.

All patents or other forms of claiming formal ownership of the results of Kirkhouse-funded research shall be managed by the owner in a manner that ensures a reasonable time of royalty-free access for public (non-commercial) entities operating in developing countries, and/or shall give Kirkhouse royalty-free license with the ability to sub-license for humanitarian purposes. The Trust also requires that institutions be willing to license or assign rights to an appropriate international public agricultural research system ITP portfolio, should one be developed, to facilitate use of research results to help food insecure subsistence farmers in developing countries.

If Kirkhouse Trust decides to retain ownership to IP, this will be stated in the contract associated with the particular project. A clause which has been used in these circumstances is as follows: Any materials or data generated by the project will remain in the ownership of the Kirkhouse Trust. Kirkhouse Trust hereby provides [name of institution] with a royalty-free license which allows it and others, who comply with Kirkhouse Trust's IP policies, to use the material and data.

2. Use of Materials for Public Benefit

Within the context of existing institutional IP policies, Grantees and project partners shall take all reasonable steps to:

• provide reasonable and ready access by public-sector beneficiaries to property, materials and processes;
• avoid unreasonable commercial exploitation of such material and processes for purposes that diminish growth of public-sector agriculture in developing countries; and
• avoid encumbering materials and processes in statutory protection such that they cannot be used for public benefit.

3. Respect for Biodiversity Regulations

The exchange of genetic materials is governed by national and international legislation. Grantees must be informed about, and fully respect, all relevant regulations, laws and procedures (both national and international). Regulated genetic materials may include wild relatives of crops, land races, varieties, and breeding lines; other organisms; and derived genetic material such as DNA and DNA sequence information.

4. Publication

The Trust strongly encourages public disclosure of results from Kirkhouse-funded research through publications in scientific literature, in print and/or electronic form. The Trust prohibits maintaining such results as trade secrets. The Trust encourages timely publication of research results, but recognizes the prerogative of scientists to retain control of their data prior to publication.

5. Costs

The project budget shall make allowance for costs relating to registration and maintenance of IP and to manage licensing of protected property. The Trust will not make available additional funds for this purpose.

6. Partnerships

In developing plans for the protection of IP within a consortium or partnership, Grantees should take reasonable steps to meet the needs and comply with the regulations of all project partner institutions.