How can intellectual property be used to improve food security?

Food security is one of the most pressing issues in the world today: one in eight people in the world go hungry every day, while over 2 billion people live in fear of hunger or starvation. This discussion, based on Professor Sherman’s ARC Laureate project, Intellectual Property and Food Security, explores the capacity for intellectual property to enhance or undermine food security. Professor Sherman will begin by identifying the various ways that intellectual property mechanisms are deployed across the food production chain. He will then describe the approach the Laureate team is taking to investigate this diverse field. Specifically, the Laureate team is currently engaged in seven individual and three collaborative projects that use historical, anthropological, and legal methods to explore a diverse range of topics from end point royalties, food labeling and safety, farmer varietal innovation, access to genetic resources and biodiversity, through to farmer’s rights and the impact that synthetic biology is having upon the intellectual property system.

Professor Brad Sherman - Law School, The University of Queensland

Brad Sherman is Professor of Law and ARC Australian Laureate Fellow at the TC Beirne School of Law, the University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia.  His research expertise encompasses many aspects of intellectual property law, with particular emphasis on its historical, doctrinal and conceptual development. Brad is currently working on a project looking at the materiality of the invention and the impact that the shift to immaterial inventions are having on intellectual property laws regulating biological material. He is also looking at early historical examples where intellectual property was used to promote food security and the lessons these offer today.

Can't make it? This seminar will be live streamed here. You can also participate in the Q&A either on Twitter by using #QAAFILIVE, or email Seminar Coordinator Hannah Hardy.