On September 16, 2011, President Obama announced that his Administration would release a National Bioeconomy Blueprint as part of his commitment to supporting scientific discovery and technological breakthroughs to ensure sustainable economic growth, improve the health of the population, and move toward a clean energy future. The 2012 National Bioeconomy Blueprint has two purposes: to lay out strategic objectives that will help realize the full potential of the U. S.  bioeconomy and to highlight early achievements toward those objectives.

Technological innovation is a significant driver of economic growth, and the U.S. bioeconomy represents a growing sector of this technology-fueled economy.   According to the USDA, U. S. revenues in 2010 from genetically modified crops were approximately $76 billion.  Beyond agriculture, based on the best available estimate, 2010 U. S. revenues from industrial biotechnology—fuels, materials, chemicals, and industrial enzymes derived from genetically modified systems—were approximately $100 billion.

The growth of today’s U. S. bioeconomy is due in large part to the development of three foundational technologies: genetic engineering, DNA sequencing, and automated high-throughput manipulations of biomolecules.

The National Bioeconomy Blueprint describes five strategic objectives for a bioeconomy with the potential to generate economic growth and address societal needs.

1.  Support R&D investments that will provide the foundation for the future U. S.  bioeconomy.

TCoordinated strategic programs and targeted investments will accelerate progress in biological research and technology areas, and this in turn will drive discovery for an American bioeconomy.

Expand and Develop Essential Bioeconomy Technologies – Multiagency collaborations for emerging foundational technologies such as synthetic biology, biology-related information technologies, proteomics, and others are being fostered in order to grow the bioeconomy.

Integrate Approaches across Fields – The Administration will prioritize additional multidisciplinary efforts to enable biological research at the boundaries of fields, such as physics, chemistry, engineering, computer sciences, and mathematics, that support the bioeconomy.

Implement Improved Funding Mechanisms – Creating or modifying funding mechanisms to support creative, high-risk/high-reward research can enable researchers to pursue daring—and potentially groundbreaking—research that may be constrained by typical funding mechanisms or approaches.

2.  Facilitate the transition of bioinventions from research lab to market, including an increased focus on translational and regulatory sciences.

Accelerate Progress to Market – To capitalize on the promise of the newly reauthorized Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program, agencies should evaluate and update SBIR programs. Some relevant objectives include reducing application response times, hiring/training program staff to enhance relevant in-house experience, and increasing the use of industry experts as peer reviewers to evaluate industry proposals.

Enhance Entrepreneurship at Universities –  Integrating entrepreneurship and industry involvement into the university research experience will facilitate the path from research to commercialization and help innovative ideas reach the marketplace. Innovative programs that enhance entrepreneurial activities at universities are needed to help academic discoveries become commercial realities.

Utilize Federal Procurement Authority – To drive the creation and growth of new bioeconomy markets, Federal agencies should prioritize procurement of biobased and sustainable products where appropriate and cost-effective.

3.  Develop and reform regulations to reduce barriers, increase the speed and predictability of regulatory processes, and reduce costs while protecting human and environmental health.

Moving forward: Improved regulatory processes will help rapidly and safely achieve the promise of the future bioeconomy.

Improve Regulatory Processes and Regulations – To reduce costs and impediments to investments but without compromising safety and efficiency, attention should be given to application review times, sequential reviews by multiple agencies should be coordinated to allow parallel reviews, and specific guidance should be issued in response to stakeholder needs.

Collaborate with Stakeholders – Federal agencies should focus on building new, and augmenting existing, stakeholder collaborations to inform efforts, streamline processes, and reduce costs and response times, while preserving safety and ensuring substantive benefit to public

4.  Update training programs and align academic institution incentives with student training for national workforce needs.

Employer-Educator Partnerships – Foster increased industry participation in the development of programs and in training students at all levels for the future bioeconomy workforce.

Reengineer Training Programs – Incentives for academic institutions to enhance entrepreneurship and restructure training programs would better prepare the future bioeconomy workforce, whether individuals are bound for careers in industry or academia.

5.  Identify and support opportunities for the development of public-private partnerships and precompetitive collaborations—where competitors pool resources, knowledge, and expertise to learn from successes and failures.

Catalyze Public-Private Partnerships – Federal agencies are encouraged to broadly pursue opportunities for effective public-private partnerships in health, energy, agriculture, and manufacturing to leverage Federal investments and industry investments and expertise.

See the complete National Bioeconomy Blueprint 2012 here.

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On April 26, 2012, WIPO celebrates World Intellectual Property Day.  The theme of World IP Day this year is “Visionary Innovators”.  Behind every great innovation, either artistic or technological, is a human story – a tale in which new pathways open as a result of the curiosity, insight or determination of individuals.

The Wright Brothers’ boyhood fascination with flight leads to a flying machine and travel by air. Louis Pasteur’s inquisitive mind advances the science of disease prevention. Tu Youyou’s dogged analysis of herbal remedies results in a malaria treatment that saves millions of lives. Steve Jobs’ ambition to make digital technology simple and accessible to everyone gives rise to personal computing and – three decades on – a new paradigm for the delivery of entertainment.

The list of visionary innovators is long. It is a catalogue of human ingenuity and creativity. It includes the many artists, writers and musicians who changed the way we see and hear things: Rembrandt and Turner, Picasso and Kandinski, each reshaping our perceptions of light, shape and form; Chekhov and Tagore, Neruda and Mafouz, their writing giving new insights into the human experience; Charlie Parker and Miles Davis, Hendrix and Rostropovich – musicians who challenge the status-quo, and endure.

Why not use World Intellectual Property Day 2011 to fully explore and utilize IP protections for your business?

What you can do

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Dr. Kalyan C. Kankanala, the founder of SiNApSE Blog and a leading IP expert in India, has published a short e-book entitled, FUN IP, the Fundamentals of Intellectual Property

After giving an overview of the basic concepts, it expounds various contemporary issues and debates around the concepts. Important IP principles have been explained in the book with simple examples and case studies. In summary, the book narrates the IP story of India by weaving together background information, concepts, cases, experiences and public perception.

The book gives a simple chapter by chapter review of the various types of intellectual property and their respective subject matter fro patents and copyrights to trade secrets and traditional knowledge-traditional knowledge.

Unlike many books that provide an overview of IP, Fun IP provides an excellent section on Traditional Knowledge.  That is, the knowledge, wisdom and information in possession of indigenous communities that has been passed to them from their ancestors:

The Biodiversity Law in India affords protection for knowledge related to biological resources with the objective of safeguarding biodiversity in the country. The law lays down a benefit sharing mechanism for utilization of traditional knowledge relating to biological resources. It provides that benefits acquired from intellectual property developed based on traditional knowledge relating to biological resources must be shared with the communities possessing the knowledge. In other words, if any person develops intellectual assets from biological resources, he will be able to acquire intellectual property protection over it only if he agrees to share benefits with communities, who provided him the knowledge with respect to the resources. For example, if a pharma company isolates active ingredients from a plant that is being used by an indigenous community in Kerala for treatment of diabetes, it can file and acquire patent protection only if it agrees to share benefits with the community that holds knowledge about the plant.

While comprehensive treatment of even a single subject covered by Fun IP would require many volumes, this e-book does provide a good overview of all the types of intellectual property protection.

I  recommended this book for those not well versed in intellectual property who are looking for a comprehensive overview.  The details of the e-book are available here.  The book  will also be made available shortly for download on i-books, Kindle and other readers.

About the Author

Dr. Kalyan C. Kankanala is a founding Partner of Brain League, National Expert on IP, United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO), and Visiting Faculty, National Law School of India University, Bangalore.  Dr. Kalyan specializes in helping companies extract and maximize business  value from intellectual assets. During his illustrious career as an IP professional, he has worked closely with technology driven companies on IP Protection, Strategic IP Analysis, IP Audits, Management of IP, Strategic Alliances, Licensing and Risk Mitigation.  SiNApSE Blog is an initiative of Brain League, created with an idea of showcasing the diversity of approaches towards Intellectual Property.

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Best quote:

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Known by many names within the industry – non-practicing entity (NPE), patent assertion entity (PAE) and most infamously as “patent trolls” – NPEs over the past few years have single-handedly spawned a sub-specialty of patent litigation.  It’s certainly big business.  It’s estimated that the average patent suit involving NPEs results in $122 million in lost wealth for the defendant,  not to mention the millions of dollars often spent in litigation costs, lost work hours and time-consuming negotiations.

Offered as a one-day event to minimize time spent out of the office and in contrast to more general IP litigation events, American Conference Institute’s NPE Litigation conference provides an opportunity for attendees to network with colleagues while engaging in an open discussion with peers who are also being confronted with the same issues.

Presenting practical strategies for:

• Approaching settlement and license negotiations with an NPE – How to Obtain Favorable Results from Your Settlement and License Negotiations
• Utilizing reexam, motion practice, claim construction and the Markman hearing to preemptively address weak IP
• Effectively asserting key defenses – divided or joint infringement, prior commercial use laches and patent pools
• Making the decision of whether or not participate in a patent pool, defensive patent aggregation group or joint defense agreement Gain and discuss best practices for successfully defending against this new breed of patent infringement claim and walk away with practical tips and proven strategies for ensuring your client achieves success in its next action involving an NPE.

When:

Where:

Millennium UN Plaza
New York, NY

How:

Seats at this event are expected to go quickly given the great interest in this topic. Reserve a space now for a member of your IP and litigation departments by calling 1-888-224-2480; faxing your registration to 1-877-927-1563 or registering online at www.AmericanConference.com/NPE.

PatentBaristas.com is a Media Sponsor of this event.  Readers of Patent Baristas are entitled to $200 off the current conference price tier.   The discount code you will need for this is: PB 200.

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