Are patents the only way to share your inventions?

Not necessarily.

The International Expert Group on Biotechnology, Innovation and Intellectual Property, led by McGill law professor Richard Gold, argues that a new intellectual property era may be nigh. Funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, the group recently completed a seven-year project to develop a novel, data-intensive model of the role of IP in life sciences innovation. The study drew upon the expertise and experiences of an international network of contributors representing industry, universities, governments and NGOs. They found that the way that universities, start-ups and many companies use IP may actually impede innovation.

“The current system, ‘Old IP,’ rests on the belief that if some IP is good, more must be better,” says Gold. “While this may have been true 30 years ago, the world has evolved and our way of dealing with IP must change as well. If not, we face the prospect of the world’s medicine cabinet emptying out.” The group suggests that the world is moving toward a New IP era, in which partnership takes precedent over hoarding.