Book chapter
Can Intellectual Property Help Feed the World? Intellectual Property, the PLUMPYFIELD Network and a Sociological Imagination
The Intellectual Property and Food Project: From Rewarding Innovation and Creation to Feeding the World, pp.145-173
Ashgate Publishing Company
2013
Abstract
Can IP law help feed the world? Informed by C.W. Mills' 1959 sociological classic, The Sociological Imagination, this chapter begins to answer the question of whether intellectual property can help feed the world. In exploring the role of intellectual property in hunger, malnutrition and food insecurity, this chapter begins by suggesting that justifying intellectual property based on advances in technology is compromised by the complexity of food insecurity, and ultimately results in a technology trap; a situation in which intellectual property specifies food security as technology at the expense of the relations in which food is produced, distributed and accessed. The chapter then examines Nutriset's PlumpyField global supply network, an instance in which intellectual property is being used in the fight against hunger, malnutrition and food insecurity. In the context of food insecurity and intellectual property, the PlumpyField network provides a model in which intellectual property can be used as a vehicle for social change. More specifically, the PlumpyField network shows how intellectual property can be used to encourage and support local participation in the manufacture and distribution of food and nutritional products, and, thus, help to create a local presence, build local capacity, facilitate access to food and nutritional products, and ensure the quality of food and nutritional products (as well as broader health and safety standards) in developing countries.
Details
- Title
- Can Intellectual Property Help Feed the World? Intellectual Property, the PLUMPYFIELD Network and a Sociological Imagination
- Authors
- Jay Sanderson (Author) - Griffith University
- Contributors
- Charles Lawson (Editor)Jay Sanderson (Editor)
- Publication details
- The Intellectual Property and Food Project: From Rewarding Innovation and Creation to Feeding the World, pp.145-173
- Publisher
- Ashgate Publishing Company
- Date published
- 2013
- Copyright note
- Copyright © 2013 Ashgate Publishing Company. Reproduced here with permission of the publisher.
- Organisation Unit
- School of Law and Society; School of Law and Criminology - Legacy
- Language
- English
- Record Identifier
- 99449818602621
- Output Type
- Book chapter
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