Access to intellectual property is a major obstacle to developing transgenic horticultural crops

Inefficiencies in accessing intellectual property (IP) appear to be hindering otherwise valuable research and development (R&D) in horticultural crop varieties. While leading private-sector agricultural biotechnology firms with strong IP positions and commercial freedom to operate (FTO) see insufficient incentives in the small, fractured markets of horticultural products, researchers with public-sector support for horticultural projects but weak IP positions may find that the best way of gaining FTO and moving forward is to band together and provide mutual access to one another's technologies. The Public Intellectual Property Resource for Agriculture (PIPRA), headquartered at UC Davis, is a new coalition of U.S. universities and foundations committed to this strategy.