The Nagoya Protocol on Access and Benefit Sharing is a new multilateral environmental agreement under the CBD, seeking to clarify definitions, issues of scope and coverage of ABS, and specific actions by user and provider countries of biodiversity resources.
The Union Cabinet approved the National Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) Policy that will lay the future roadmap for intellectual property in India. The Policy recognises the abundance of creative and innovative energies that flow in India, and the need to tap into and channelise these energies towards a better and brighter future for all.
For millennia, seeds have been freely available to use for farming and plant breeding without restriction. Within the past century, however, intellectual property rights (IPRs) have threatened this tradition. In response, a movement has emerged to counter the trend toward increasing consolidation of control and ownership of plant germplasm.
