Pervasive incentives, disparate innovation and intellectual property law

Current interest in patent policy reaches beyond the academic community, as two recent newspaper articles demonstrate: one concerned how 'a new technique for creating embryo-free human stem cells sidesteps a controversial US patent that has slowed the pace of scientific discovery worldwide.' James Thomson of the University of Wisconsin generated the patent but also the breakthrough which circumvents it. Since another group simultaneously reported the technique no 'one team can control it', according to the author. The other article related to the Australian National University (ANU), which was told by the Australian Universities Quality Audit (AUQA) to, 'better promote the intellectual property attached to its research to raise its profile'. AUQA stressed that even if the ANU was not set to make much money from exploiting intellectual property (IP), at least exploitation 'could raise ANU's standing in the global community'.