Next month, a meeting will be held in Mexico for the Nagoya Protocol on Access to Genetic Resources and the Fair and Equitable Sharing of Benefits Arising From Their Use, part of the UN’s Convention on Biological Diversity. In effect since October 2014, the Protocol was created to ensure that developed countries do not exploit genetic resources from less wealthy countries. Eighty-nine countries are part of the Protocol—the US is not one of them. The Protocol ensures that providers and users of genetic resources from developing countries properly distribute any subsequent intellectual property rights or royalties arising from the genetic resource. The meeting next month tackles the question of whether the Protocol agreement should also apply to digital DNA sequences that may not ever touch a physical sample. If the agreement is extended to digital DNA sequences, the Protocol requirements may be challenging to enforce, as it is difficult to access and claim the rights for a sequence and may also interfere with the collaborative nature of R&D. It is also difficult to keep track of which sequences become profitable, as there is not always a clear, traceable path to the origin of a sample. This can potentially lead to biopiracy, the profiting of a biological product without any sharing of the profit with the location of the sample’s origin. Moreover, not all countries require the documentation of genetic resources. For example, China and Brazil require that all patent applications name the origin country of any genetic resources used, but the US does not. Changing the system to ensure proper attribution to the sample’s origin also raises questions. It is unclear how much a sequence would have to contribute to a new product in order for the creator of the product to share profits; and what country should get the rights to a sequence if identical sequences are found in various countries.
Source: Science