Sep 13, 2018 By: yunews
Dr. Aman Gebru, a visiting assistant professor at the , recently accepted an offer to publish a paper in the Denver Law Review for April 2019. Titled 鈥淧atents, Disclosure, and Biopiracy,鈥 the economics of information disclosure in the patent system and how to address issues that arise when inventors utilize the knowledge of indigenous peoples.
鈥淭he question that my paper tries to answer is this: Should inventors disclose information about the source of traditional knowledge they relied upon in their inventive process when they claim patent rights over their invention? I argue that inventors should disclose such information,鈥 Dr. Gebru. 鈥淚f inventors are required to disclose the source of traditional knowledge they relied upon, the patent system could easily reject undeserving patent applications.鈥 In addition, 鈥渢he disclosure will also empower source communities to request recognition and sharing benefits from inventions that are developed based on their knowledge. The ultimate result may be a collaborative relationship between researchers and source communities in which the public benefits from innovative products and services being produced more quickly and cheaply.鈥
Gebru will at George Washington University on September 26, 2018, as part of the university鈥檚 Intellectual Property Law Program and again on September 29, 2018, at the hosted by American University Washington College of Law.
