Recent years have seen a remarkable increase in patents in the field of information, communication and entertainment (ICE) technology and biotechnology. The growth of patents in those areas has triggered serious concern about access to ICE and genome related inventions, as the rise of patents...

The present paper explores the multi-layered relationship between plant patents, the right to food and competition law. The present contribution takes the view that the growing tendency to appropriate agricultural crops through intellectual property (IP) – thereby making a pivotal shift from...

In the delicate interaction between intellectual property and public interest, two antinomian questions come to the fore. The first question is to what extent patent law guarantees public interest, contributes to public interest or, on the contrary, limits public interest. The second question is...

Intellectual property rights have, from their inception, been shaped by international treaties. National legislators have had to look at the international scene to gain some insight into the prevailing intellectual property standards. This trend was less prominent in the field of patent law and...

The production of biodiversity-based drugs has gained wide interest and concern. Two main approaches can be observed. The majority of legal thinking has been focusing on models protecting (and preserving) biodiversity and associated traditional knowledge to fit the needs of biodiversity and...

Setting up a new business may be really tough. Let's assume you want to produce and market DVD-players. You can not ignore the fact that the DVD technology is protected with patents. More than 850 patents owned by some 10 patent holders around the world, such as Philips, Sony, Toshiba, Hitachi,...

Information and knowledge form the very basis of scientific progress. Access to information and disclosure of research results are key to the advancement of a knowledge economy. Current academic knowledge development, however, is characterized by two tendencies which may form a threat to further...

The extension of patent protection to biological material is by no means a recent phenomenon in Belgium. In 1836 the Belgian Patent Office granted the first patent for a micro-organism, viz. a yeast for the production of beer. A century later, in 1949, the Office delivered the first patent for a...

How can consumers be assured that firms will endeavor to provide good quality when quality is unobservable prior to purchase? We test the hypothesis that reputational incentives are effective at causing restaurants to maintain good hygiene quality. We find that chain affiliation provides...

As in most industries, in health care, information is a competitive asset, and we expect that health care providers may have incentive to protect their information from competitors. This study aims to understand how this incentive to protect information may be a barrier to the development of a...