The Politics of Gene Patents in a Time of Turmoil

Centre of Genomics and Policy, Faculty of Medicine, invites you to attend:
« The Politics of Gene Patents in a Time of Turmoil »
Thursday, August 26, 2010

2:00 – 4:30 p.m.

RSVP: Rose-Marie Hozyan, rose-marie.hozyan@mcgill.ca by no later than August 20, 2010.

McGill University and Génome Québec Innovation Centre

740 Docteur Penfield Avenue

6th Floor – Room 6001

Montreal, Quebec

H3A 1A4

(514) 398-8155

DESCRIPTION:

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Over the last few years, government-sponsored expert groups, courts, academics and student organization have become more critical of the ways that universities and companies obtain and license human DNA patents, particularly for genetic testing uses. Patenting and licensing practices are now front and center in several ways including through court challenges to BRCA patents in the US and Australia and calls for patent reform. University technology managers and biotech trade organizations are now not only lobbying but also being criticized. A once quiet and abstruse policy backwater is moving mainstream, and the politics becoming more intense.

PANEL :

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Richard Gold is an expert in innovation, patent law and policy, and is also a professor at McGill University’s Faculty of Law where he was founding Director of the Centre for Intellectual Property Policy. Richard frequently provides advice to international organizations (WHO, UNITAID, WIPO, OECD), governments and institutions on the strategic use of intellectual property rights. Richard also has substantial practical experience in technology and corporate law at a top tier Toronto law firm where he worked prior to entering academia. All in all, he brings a rich blend of practical, policy and academic experience to innovation strategy.
Robert Cook-Deegan is Director of Duke University’s IGSP’s Center for Genome Ethics, Law & Policy, prior to which he was Director of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health Policy Fellowship program at the National Academy of Sciences, a health policy investigator at Georgetown University, and a seminar leader at Stanford-in-Washington (1996-2003). He worked at The National Academies in various capacities from 1991 until 2002.
Julia Carbone is currently completing her SJD at Duke University, under the supervision of Arti Rai, looking at the relationship between formal intellectual property laws and informal community norms surrounding innovation. She holds degrees in philosophy and law from McGill University, as well as, a Master of Laws from Duke University.