countries, especially developing nations, because it limits the rights of farmers to freely save, exchange, reuse and sell agricultural seeds (Tansey and Rajotte, 2008).

     Patents entered plant breeding initially through court decisions in the USA in the 1980s via association with biotechnology. They were subsequently granted in other OECD countries, and offered greater protection to a wider array of products and processes, such as genes, traits, molecular constructs, and enabling technologies (Lesser and Mutschler, 2002). However, varieties are excluded from patentability in most countries. The EU introduced a breeder's exemption into its patent law, and some EU countries have introduced a farmer's privilege to avoid the pitfalls of excessively strong protection (World Bank, 2006).

IPR limitations. Even though IPR may be important for private seed sector development, some sectors have been successful in developing countries without IP protection. For example, the private seed sector in India has grown and diversified without the benefit of IPRs but in the context of liberal seed laws and in many cases through the use of hybrids as a means of appropriation (Louwaars et al., 2005).

     Some indicators suggest that the IPR in developing countries may have occurred primarily as costs, as many patents are thought to slow down research. This problem is described as "the problem of the anti-commons" (Heller and Eisenberg, 1998) or "patent thickets" (Shapiro, 2001; Pray et al., 2005). Consider the example of Veery wheat, which is the product of 3170 different crosses involving 51 parents from 26 countries that were globally, publicly released. The development cycle of Veery would have been very difficult if, for each parent and each cross, it was necessary to negotiate a separate agreement (SGRP, 2006). Even though IPR tends to be territorial, i.e., granted at the national level, trade agreements have led to greater "harmonization" of IPR regimes (Falcon and Fowler, 2002) with countries adopting laws and rules that may not benefit seed-saving farmers (Box 2-3).

     In many developing countries, institutional infrastructure required for implementation and enforcement of IPR regimes is still lacking. Opposition against TRIPS and the IP-clauses of free trade agreements concentrates on the lack of incentives for development of the seed industry in developing countries due to the harmonization approach. However, in agricultural biotechnology development, which is highly concentrated, the IPR issues precipitate more in the form of licensing practices and policies, shaping the impact of patent systems to a large extent. Consequently, there has been a misconception that existing problems can be best solved through reshaping patent regulations and laws alone. There is a related need to examine how licensing agreements contribute to many problems at the intersection of IP and agricultural biotechnology (CIPP, 2004).

Sharing of genetic resources; challenge and necessity. A reaction to IPR: national sovereignty and equity issues. The lack of explicit rules governing germplasm rights was the historical standard in agriculture until the 1990s. As pressure to protect IPR in improved varieties and "inventions" increased, the atmosphere concerning access to and use of genetic resources became increasingly politicized. This was

augmented with concern, particularly among developing countries, that inequitable global patterns were established in the distribution of benefits associated with the use of genetic resources. Concurrently, there was growing concern that genetic diversity and local knowledge related to the use of those resources continued to be eroded under the pressures of modernization (Gepts, 2004)./p>

     In response, the international community attempted to address these tensions and create a new regime for access to genetic resources and the sharing of benefits associated with their use. One of the most significant outcomes was the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD, 1994) (Box 2-4 and Chapter 7), which came into force in 1993. The CBD emphasized states' sovereign rights over their natural resources and their "authority to determine access to genetic resources, subject to national legislation." The Convention also addresses rights of local and indigenous communities in this respect. Over 160 countries have ratified the CBD; the US is not among them. Most countries have interpreted the access and benefit sharing provisions of the CBD as the basis for establishing much tighter procedural and substantive restrictions to gaining access to genetic resources within their borders. To this end, they have developed, or are developing, bilaterally oriented access laws that require case-by-case negotiations to establish legal conditions for obtaining and using materials from a country although they are not binding, and few countries have reported implementing them. Nonetheless, they are a good indicator that most countries think of the CBD's access and benefit sharing provisions as requiring, or justifying, a bilateral and restrictive approach