Uploaded May 2017 | Updated September 2026, 1 hour ago
The advent of intellectual property (IP) rights has directly impacted all of the steps of a public soybean breeding program. In my view, the IP rights have been a positive step forward but have added many requirements to the operation of a breeding program. For example, open germplasm exchange among public breeders is a practice of the past. The acquisition of parental stocks now requires lots of paperwork in the form of multiple MTAs or Research Agreements as well as additional time required for both party’s legal team reviews and negotiations. In some cases, it has caused a reduction in diversity of germplasm available to the breeder because no agreement can be reached. The IP rights also increase the costs of isolating and advancing some materials in winter nurseries as well as in yield testing novel traits in separate isolated tests with a third-party specified set of “check” cultivars. Furthermore, the cultivar release and marketing requirements have changed substantially from pre-IP days. This presentation will focus on such changes and added requirements as they relate to the soybean breeding program at the University of Tennessee over the past 25 years.
The advent of intellectual property (IP) rights has directly impacted all of the steps of a public soybean breeding program. In my view, the IP rights have been a positive step forward but have added many requirements to the operation of a breeding program. For example, open germplasm exchange among public breeders is a practice of the past. The acquisition of parental stocks now requires lots of paperwork in the form of multiple MTAs or Research Agreements as well as additional time required for both party’s legal team reviews and negotiations. In some cases, it has caused a reduction in diversity of germplasm available to the breeder because no agreement can be reached. The IP rights also increase the costs of isolating and advancing some materials in winter nurseries as well as in yield testing novel traits in separate isolated tests with a third-party specified set of “check” cultivars. Furthermore, the cultivar release and marketing requirements have changed substantially from pre-IP days. This presentation will focus on such changes and added requirements as they relate to the soybean breeding program at the University of Tennessee over the past 25 years.
