ABSTRACT
Civil society and non-governmental organisations facilitate important public participation and cooperation in the setting of global health agenda. This civil society activity should be understood in the context of the history of intellectual property, and the environment in which the developed countries established their economies and intellectual property resources. For Lord Snow, scientific innovation is separated as an economic and utilitarian activity, with little in common with the cultural products 'defended' against other intellectual property frameworks. The notion of 'two cultures' was presented to a controversial reaction in a 1959 lecture by Snow, scientist and one time assistant to the Minister of Technology in the government of Harold Wilson, and Rector of St. Andrews in the early 1960s. A cultural interrogation of the patent system precipitates recognition of the critical value of access to the intention of the system.
