Martha Traylor
20 Nassau Street, Suite 204
Princeton, New Jersey 08540
U.S.A.
During negotiations leading up to the Biodiversity Treaty much was said concerning arranging for Developing Countries to have access to technology embodied in the United States Patents which would grow from use of genetic material obtained from the Developing Countries. The intensity of this issue led to much heated debate and resulted in a less than satisfactory description of agreement in the Treaty itself. Certainly a better accomodation of this issue will need to be developed in the future. These patents would be on the leading edge of scientific and technological development and would be immensely important both to the developing country from which the genetic material comes and industry in the United States and other developed countries.
However, there is another related issue rgarding transfer of technology which I wish to address in this proposal. There is, sitting in the Patent Office of the United States, a great body of technology that is there for the asking, and is in many instances far more pertinent to the needs of the women I have seen who are struggling with environmental problems in their countries. This lies in U.S., Patents which have expired and which embody specifiic technology usable by these women. Many, many expired patents would be valuable blueprints and specific directions to these women. All that would be needed would be to identify the need and go to the Patent Office archives, which are minutely indexed as to subject matter, to see if there has been, somewhere in the past a solution found to the problem, a patent written on the solution, and that patents having lived out its seventeen years. Copies of these patents either on paper or electronically can be obtained for a few dollars.
The very work "Patent" means "open". American inventors, in return for seventeen years of commerical protection for their invention, have agreed by applying for a patent to "open" their idea and its development up to the public, to add their bit of new information to the total body of information available to the public. By this means, the total information of the society increases and after the seventeen years has passed is there to be used. Use by these women is the embodiment of the patent contract between the inventor and the U.S. government.
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