AUTM Journal Volume XVIII No. 2 2006

• Editor’s Preface
• Human Embryonic Stem Cells: A Review of the Intellectual
• Property Landscape
• Technology Licensing for the Benefit of the Developing
• World: UC Berkeley’s Socially Responsiblity Licensing Program
• Parallel Importation: A Threat to Pharmaceutical Innovation?
• Canada’s Helping Hand: Jean Chretien’s Pledge to Africa
  Legislation Allowing Export of Pharmaceuticals under Compulsory License 
• Surveying the Need for Technology Management for Global Health Training Programs
  Usha Balakrishnan, MBA, Lisa Troyer, PhD, and Edwin Brands, PhD
• Legalink:Why Provisionals Need Claims Instructions for Contributors
  

Editor's Preface 
Whenever it’s time to choose the next theme for an upcoming issue of the AUTM Journal, I find myself taking a tiny leap of faith. For, despite the breadth of diversity, industry knowledge and combined experience of the AUTM Journal Editorial Advisory Board and editors, selecting a topic that is timely, interesting, and, perhaps most importantly from an editor’s point of view, inspirational to potential authors, requires a good deal of deliberation and a dollop of intuition. So we were more than pleasantly surprised—and maybe even a little overwhelmed—at the response we received from the call for abstracts for this issue, which sought papers on “Patenting, Licensing, and Social Responsibility.”  Clearly, if the magnitude of the response is any indication, this important topic resonates throughout the technology transfer community. Perhaps because it is not only a complex and timely subject with great implications within universities but also to people worldwide as they are the potential beneficiaries from discoveries made at nonprofit institutions.

However, while the assuredness of the topic is evident, the mechanics of accomplishing socially responsible patenting and licensing at universities are still under debate. And that is, in part, what this issue of the AUTM Journal is all about. In “Human Embryonic Stem Cells: A Review of the Intellectual Property Landscape,” Irene Abrams discusses the complex patenting and licensing world of human embryonic stem cells (hESCs). The paper provides a history on hESCs and outlines the major patents in the hESC field and their availability for licensing in both research and commercial areas. Abrams goes on to describe the intellectual property provisions agreed upon under the recent hESC legislation passed in California and asserts that the intellectual property landscape surrounding hESCs is clearer and licensing is available in most fields.

In the second article, “Technology Licensing for the Benefit of the Developing World: UC Berkeley’s Socially Responsible Licensing Program,” Carol Mimura, PhD, describes the University of California at Berkeley’s Socially Responsible Licensing Program (SRLP). Begun three years ago as a response to faculty member’s dengue fever diagnostic, SRLP guides licensing of inventions applicable to nontraditional markets, such as developing countries. Mimura cites examples of Berkeley’s contracts signed under SRLP, as well as selected contract clauses and policies. Berkeley also restructured intellectual property management by consolidating industry interactions with the university, thereby streamlining the university-industry interface and measuring success on all interactions with industry, not solely licensing revenue. Mimura cites this view of success as enabling new strategies for intellectual property management, including unique approaches for technologies applicable to needs in developing nations.