TAUBMAN, Antony
Antony Taubman is currently Acting Director and Head of the Global Intellectual Property Issues Division (including the Traditional Knowledge Division and Life Sciences Program) of WIPO, a position he assumed in May 2002, with responsibility for programs on intellectual property and genetic resources, traditional knowledge and folklore, the life sciences, and related global issues. After a diplomatic career, he left the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) in 2001 to join the newly formed Australian Centre for Intellectual Property in Agriculture, at the Australian National University, teaching and researching on international IP law. From 1998 to 2001, he was Director of the International Intellectual Property Section of DFAT, and in that capacity was engaged in multilateral and bilateral negotiations on intellectual property issues, domestic policy development, regional cooperation, and TRIPS dispute settlement. He has taken part in many training and capacity building programs on intellectual property law and TRIPS in Australia and a number of Asian countries. He has authored a training handbook on intellectual property and biotechnology, a comprehensive study on the implementation of the TRIPS Agreement, and a range of academic and general publications on international intellectual property law and policy. He has held a teaching appointment at the School of Law at the University of Melbourne, delivering a specialist postgraduate course on TRIPS Law and Practice.
He joined DFAT in 1988 as a career diplomat, and his service included disarmament policy and participation in the negotiations on the Chemical Weapons Convention, a posting in the Australian Embassy in Tehran as Deputy Head of Mission, and a posting to the Hague as Alternate Representative to the Preparatory Commission for the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons and Chair of the Expert Group on Confidentiality. He previously worked for WIPO from 1995 to 1998; his duties then included development cooperation in Asia and the Pacific, the development of the revised WIPO program and budget, and associated policy development. A registered patent attorney, he worked in private practice in the law of patents, trademarks, and designs in Melbourne in the 1980s. His tertiary education has included computer science, mathematics, engineering, classical languages, philosophy, international relations and law, and he has taught ancient Greek philosophy at Melbourne University.
Abstract
Public Sector IP Management in the Life Sciences: Reconciling Practice and Policy—Perspectives from WIPO
Abstract:
This chapter reviews the options for effective public sector management of intellectual property (IP) in the life sciences, focusing on the need for a judicious, pragmatic choice of options along two axes: (1) deployment of exclusive rights over technology and (2) use of market mechanisms to bring a new technology to the public. The essence of public sector IP management is finding the right settings along these two axes that will deliver tangible outcomes in line with defined public-interest objectives. Experience shows that ex ante assumptions about how to gain optimal leverage from exclusive rights, and the appropriate degree of reliance on market mechanisms, are unlikely to serve a public sector IP manager well. In clarifying objectives and the practical means of achieving them, pragmatic coordination between the practical and policy levels is essential. Public sector IP managers are more likely to be assessed against public interest expectations than their private sector colleagues. In IP management in the life sciences, policy and practice are ultimately two sides of the same coin; practitioners cannot hope, expect, or plan to operate outside the broader policy perspective. Policy-makers therefore need to consider the actual practice of IP management when assessing a policy framework for innovation in the life sciences. IP managers should be open to using legal mechanisms flexibly for inclusion, or exclusion, as required to achieve their goals. Finally, managers should seek mechanisms to pragmatically structure and promote partnerships with those who have the resources necessary to bring life-sciences innovation to the public. Such partnerships may be centered in the public, philanthropic, or private sectors, but more likely fall into a hybrid mix of these categories.
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