Intellectual Property

alps

The move by LIC shareholders to protect their IP "rights" probably makes it timely to ask about IP rights that irish farmers may have.

We pay levies, lots of levies, teagasc, ICBF, and submit our personal, financial and performance figures for our own and for our industry's benefit.

Who owns the results of this research? Who is to be the benefactor from such research?

I know farmers the world over have always been keen to share knowledge with like minded farmers, from whatever nationality, so that it may be helpful to all, but I'm unsure what to think when industry uses such knowledge and research in a manner that could be construed as helping the competitor...



Outline of the 2016 conference: Ireland Genetics UK Research Conference
THE SPEAKERS
Bernard Eivers MRCVS: CEO of The National Cattle Breeding Centre, Ireland: Introduction
Dr Pat Dillon: Head of the Teagasc Animal and Grassland, Research and Innovation programme since 2009: The role of research in driving agriculture forwards
Dr Laurence Shalloo: Senior Dairy & Beef Systems Economic analysis researcher in Teagasc Moorepark, specific interest in Milk pricing strategies, Seasonality of milk production: Financial strategies to help cope with milk price volatility
Riona Sayers MVB BSc MAnSC: Herd Health Research Officer with Teagasc Moorepark, with a specific interest in Dairy herd health: The cost of disease
Dr David Wall: Soil Science Research Officer with Teagasc with a specific interest in soil fertility and plant nutrition, fertiliser and manure optimisation and the sustainability of farming systems: Is your soil working for you or against you?

Location: Heatherley Manor Hotel, Down Heatherly Lane, Gloucester, GL2 9QA.

Signing up is essential.

The conference will cost £80 per ticket which includes tea and coffee at various times throughout the day, along with a hot lunch.

For a booking form please email info@irelandgenetics.co.uk or call Gareth Davies on 07791 564076




Is this questionable, or beneficial to us, or am I just off the wall to be confused by it?

kevthegaff

Farmers will never own IP in regards to farming unless a drastic new technique, which is highly doubtful imo.

pedigree 6

The amount of information and research that is available now on the internet (free) to farmers from all over the world is unprecedented in the history of mankind.
We can look up research from universities, blogs, tweets and forums from farmers all over the world.
It's up to yourself if you want to look it up and implement it on your own place.

It would be a bad day if this was all to end.

(Shur didn't most of our research here come from New Zealand in 70's and 80's.
We just perfected it.);)

Bellview

Pity the journal has sided so strong with icbf here. Lic are paying good money for research so they are entitled to a return. Looking from outside icbf have taken a monopoly approach and are bad mouthing lic instead of working with them and leave some skin in the game. The icbf boys should be trying to work a win win and talk rather than using the journal to leak another story...which seems to be the icbf way of doing busines

freedominacup

Bellview wrote: »

Pity the journal has sided so strong with icbf here. Lic are paying good money for research so they are entitled to a return. Looking from outside icbf have taken a monopoly approach and are bad mouthing lic instead of working with them and leave some skin in the game. The icbf boys should be trying to work a win win and talk rather than using the journal to leak another story...which seems to be the icbf way of doing busines

Lic are chancing their arm plain and simple. I'm only back in milk a few years and I've already invested hundreds of thousands in developing the herd we have. Half the genetic material that goes into any dairy calf born here is mine. They lose any "rights" once I pay for the straw, end of. Relatively speaking I spend far more on developing my breeding than they do and I would always argue that the cow brings far more to the party than any bull. I fail to see why icbf have anything to do with the discussion.

Edit. Thinking about it since they have a cheek to be talking about their ip. All they did was buy someone else's work. Unless I'm mistaken they don't own many breeding cows. If you take their point to it's obvious conclusion they should be kicking back serious royalties to the breeders of the bills they have in stud.

kowtow

alps wrote: »

The move by LIC shareholders to protect their IP "rights" probably makes it timely to ask about IP rights that irish farmers may have.

We pay levies, lots of levies, teagasc, ICBF, and submit our personal, financial and performance figures for our own and for our industry's benefit.

Who owns the results of this research? Who is to be the benefactor from such research?

I know farmers the world over have always been keen to share knowledge with like minded farmers, from whatever nationality, so that it may be helpful to all, but I'm unsure what to think when industry uses such knowledge and research in a manner that could be construed as helping the competitor...



Outline of the 2016 conference: Ireland Genetics UK Research Conference
THE SPEAKERS
Bernard Eivers MRCVS: CEO of The National Cattle Breeding Centre, Ireland: Introduction
Dr Pat Dillon: Head of the Teagasc Animal and Grassland, Research and Innovation programme since 2009: The role of research in driving agriculture forwards
Dr Laurence Shalloo: Senior Dairy & Beef Systems Economic analysis researcher in Teagasc Moorepark, specific interest in Milk pricing strategies, Seasonality of milk production: Financial strategies to help cope with milk price volatility
Riona Sayers MVB BSc MAnSC: Herd Health Research Officer with Teagasc Moorepark, with a specific interest in Dairy herd health: The cost of disease
Dr David Wall: Soil Science Research Officer with Teagasc with a specific interest in soil fertility and plant nutrition, fertiliser and manure optimisation and the sustainability of farming systems: Is your soil working for you or against you?

Location: Heatherley Manor Hotel, Down Heatherly Lane, Gloucester, GL2 9QA.

Signing up is essential.

The conference will cost £80 per ticket which includes tea and coffee at various times throughout the day, along with a hot lunch.

For a booking form please email info@irelandgenetics.co.uk or call Gareth Davies on 07791 564076




Is this questionable, or beneficial to us, or am I just off the wall to be confused by it?

Not off the wall at all, your instinct is absolutely spot on.

And - whilst up until now knowledge sharing has often been an extension of the normal community of agriculture, neighbour to neighbour etc. - in the future the adoption of large scale data gathering at the farm level will change the balance.

When every cow has swallowed a rumen monitor and is wearing a heat detection / gps collar, every field is measured at every point by sensors and growth plates, every seed is placed by dgps to 1 cm accuracy and then monitored and mapped for yield through to harvest..... and each of these sensors generates an update every few seconds... there will be a lot of data involved.

For your convenience, of course, that data will be made available in the cloud, and you will be able to view the simplest of signals (the cow on heat or sick, the final yield map, the chemical application records or the paddock growth)... which is all very well, because that's why you bought the gizmo in the first place.

But a large part of the value of the data is not the result to the individual farmer, but the aggregate data set of all farms and farmers together with allows the algorithms to be developed to deliver the basic functions.

For example, movement sensors are nothing new, cost around a dollar or two. Stick them in a collar and shove them on a cow and you get a wild graph over a few months as she lies down, stands up, ruminates, and mounts her friend Bessie. Stick them on a thousand cows and record the calving dates of those cows, and ideally the AI dates, and you have the makings of an algorithm for heat detection which will from now on tell you when any cow is probably in heat.

And so on and so on.

Now of course the results of that data use are of benefit to farmers because products developed are useful, but as data continues to be gathered (and products to be improved) and aggregated, sold, licensed on for further research... it has to be recognised that the farmers effort and capital and expense is responsible for harvesting the data and that function has a value.

Tagging is a classic example. Farmers pay for tags, apply them under threat of penalty, monitor them etc. and full trace-ability is ensured from farm to supermarket - the data is already there as are the systems. So why can't a beef farmer go in online to see where his animals ended up? This is not a technical issue, but a political one.

blue5000

There's a similar debate in USA about JD software. If you buy a tractor off them they still own the software to fix it. I'll try find a link.

http://modernfarmer.com/2016/07/right-to-repair/

It's sort of the opposite side of the coin to the above situation, one manufacturer vs many customers.

croot

Bellview wrote: »

Pity the journal has sided so strong with icbf here. Lic are paying good money for research so they are entitled to a return.

They are getting a return when you buy the straw initially.

If this move is successful could all pedigree breeders (beef included) be liable to pay royalties from all sales of their stock to AI companies? This move could be the thin end of the wedge.

freedominacup wrote: »

Lic are chancing their arm plain and simple. I'm only back in milk a few years and I've already invested hundreds of thousands in developing the herd we have. Half the genetic material that goes into any dairy calf born here is mine. They lose any "rights" once I pay for the straw, end of.

Dead on. ICBF are actually doing everyone a favour by drawing peoples attention to it.

pedigree 6

LIC has the same access that Dovea and PG and Bova has to the national herd database and records.
Let them buy the best bull calves in an open market and compete with the other companies.
Dirty tricks.

bogman_bass

we have seen how seed companies in the US have been so aggressive in their legal protection of their IP do we really want the same here with animal genetics?

kowtow

bogman_bass wrote: »

we have seen how seed companies in the US have been so aggressive in their legal protection of their IP do we really want the same here with animal genetics?

I think the idea that one could protect the IP (or more properly 'claim ownership' of the IP) of animal genetics is absurd from a moral and ethical - actually even a legal point of view.

If I wish to patent a new invention as an improvement to an existing invention then I must licence the invention I am improving, and the only part I can protect is my modification. So - although it is repugnant - I can understand the legal basis for protecting a specific genetic modification of a crop.

But semen is not genetically modified. These bulls are natures creation, albeit with the hand of man in their care and selection. I can't patent the view of a beautiful garden created over the years, and I wouldn't want to, so by extension I can't understand why I should be able to patent a bull and his genetic contribution to the future.

To accept this is to assert that human beings have absolute ownership over nature and the animals in our care today, notwithstanding the thousands of years of evolution that went before. And if I accept that, since we humans are ourselves members of the animal kingdom, I can't see why I cannot do the same in respect of my own children and grandchildren.

Bellview

croot wrote:

If this move is successful could all pedigree breeders (beef included) be liable to pay royalties from all sales of their stock to AI companies? This move could be the thin end of the wedge.

But there are pedigree bulls in ai today getting royalties..which is a disgrace. Even munster support this concept with two angus bulls that calves are registered with the Scottish aberdeen society.

Pity icbf don't voice up about this. Icbf could be great but unless you agree with their point of view they act like school bullies and refuse to engage.