Digital Technologies, Research Collaborations and the Extension of Protection for Intellectual Property in Science: Will Building ‘Good Fences’ Really Make ‘Good Neighbors’?

Paul A David, All Souls College, Oxford & Stanford University

1/01/2005
(Original Publish Date: 2001)

EC research programmes are promoting collaborative scientific research in generaland "integrated Internet-based collaborations" in particular. New intellectual propertyrights (IPRs) are being developed to ensure the "intellectual property" of newlydeveloped scientific and technological databases. As opposed to several recentinstitutional innovations, in this essay it is argued that the barriers invoked by thesenew IPRs should be "low and penetrable", ensuring the widespread use of thesedatabases by researchers in those (public) organizations and institutions that areexpected to promote the interests of society at large.