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In under-developed countries, farmers breed crop varieties adapted to their local soil/climate conditions over several decades. Local plant breeders improve varieties through a circular model : selective breeding, release of the variety, and use of the seeds for further selection. Traditional varieties are not fixed genetic structures, but rather dynamic structures, resulting from collective efforts over generations. Most of the time, improvement and use of crops cannot be separated.
An interesting variety may be locally known for its particular properties and identified by a local name, but rarely patented. This may be explained by several facts: the crop does not show the quality of stability and homogeneity required, patenting is a long and expensive process, the selection of the crop is a community work, hence no single holder can be identified, etc.
Ethnobotanists from firms and research facilities are prospecting biological resources , which they use for research and making new and improved products (i.e., agricultural, food and pharmaceutical products).Given the international market potential, an agricultural biotechnological company can decide to ask the indigenous community of the biodiversity-rich country for information on interesting crops availability. Discovering that this variety and its characteristics appeal to a market in developed coutries, the company acquires samples of it.
The firm, then, geneticallyGenetic engineering genetic modification GM , and gene splicing (once in widespread use but now deprecated) are terms for the process of manipulating genes in an organism, usually outside of the organism's normal reproductive process. It often involves th engineers a close substitute from the original natural variety, adding an improvement (e.g., pest resistance), and keeping the natural variety's desirable characteristics.
As a genetically engineered variety, the new crop can be patented and its name trademarkSee also: brand Bass Red Triangle, was the first trademark registered in Britain in 1876. A trademark ( Commonwealth English: trade mark is a distinctive name, phrase, symbol, design, picture, or style used by a business to identify itself and its producted. Companies, in particular, are quick to apply for a patent on the collected resource or the new products, so as to prevent competitors from using them. The biotechnological company may license production of the crop in any suitable country, and even export the product in the source-country, in which case the improved variety comes into competition with the traditional one.
The company may even ask for the intellectual protectionIn law, intellectual property is a form of legal entitlement which allows its holder to control the use of certain intangible ideas and expressions. The term intellectual property reflects the fact that once established, such entitlements are generally tr of the modified variety in the original country in order to prevent both seeds from co-exististing, and the natural variety from being sold under the traditional name. In the latter case, the source-country loses its rights to produce or use the original variety for any further breeding.
The implications for the source-country are various:
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