ABSTRACT

This chapter examines the conduct of scientific research, focuses on agricultural research and comments on the interplay of public and proprietary interests. The practice of scientific research bumps up against conflicting and complementary interests of the public, firms, and states. Scientific knowledge has the potential of improving lives. Overprotecting patent rights result in a failure to care for the other by preventing access to and use of new knowledge. Economic nationalists assume that states remain the most important actors in the global political economy, and that their goal is to further their own interests in accumulating power, including wealth. Commodification happens when access to the products and services that implement scientific knowledge is restricted by patent rights. The traditional role of the university as the sponsor of new public domain knowledge has been limited by the extent to which reaping the benefits of patents drives research priorities.