Eco Note by H. ELLA
A DECREE THAT ROBS PETER TO PAY PAUL
Not long ago, before the age of discontent that struck universities in France earlier this year, one of the biggest projects of the Ministry of Research and Education was the reform of the intellectual property system in research institutions. The Ministry had argued that it was more than time to simplify the regulations on intellectual property, and that the system of the sole agent could represent a true opportunity for a desperately dated system. According to the decree, the host of the laboratory or the team from which the discovery originates would become the sole agent, a solution that may be worse than the problem it's supposed to resolve. The notion of "host" is far too vague, because currently, in a majority of cases, the host is the university, which is just making available its premises without even being involved in the research carried out by research institutions that decide, pay, publish and patent the projects. Consequently, under the veil of making things simpler, we would end up with a distorted picture of the healthy competitiveness that exists between universities and large organizations with regard to the Academic Ranking of World Universities, which is being used as a frame of reference. After the French government made a huge step forward in April by creating the National Alliance for Life and Health Sciences for the coordination of the major parties involved in these sectors, the decree comes as a real setback for some large organizations, because it puts the capacity to make patent deposits heavily under threat for those French Public Scientific and Technical Research Establishments (EPST) who don't benefit from having their own premises (such as the French National Institute for Health and Medical Research - the Inserm). Are we powerless witnesses to how our public research institutions are being robbed of their assets?
 © Bf - June 29, 2009 - No.424
Companies :
Printable version
Aucun commentaire.
|
