ABSTRACT
This chapter sets out some recent attempts by the government of the Philippines to reform and revise its intellectual property rights (IPR) laws, in order to take into account all of the various forms of knowledge that contribute to the conduct of research and development (R&D) in the biological sector. There are certain industries (the life sciences) in which R&D may be a more complex sector than usual, involving contributions from natural capital and traditional capital as well as more modern forms of capital. For this reason there has been significant pressure for the development of IPR systems that recognize these forms of contributions, and which allocate the rents from innovation accordingly.
