Indonesia Stops Sharing Avian Virus Samples

dankrabach writes "Indonesia has apparently decided to play the IP game, with the world's health at stake. The country, one of the hardest-hit by avian flu, has stopped submitting virus samples to the World Health Organization, and is negotiating to sell them to an American drug company that makes the vaccine. They feel slighted when they give away such samples, but then cannot afford the patented vaccines. Logical to me, given the rules of the game; however, can't we come up with some GPL'ish license to free any product based on this data?"

Comments

Alternate first sentence

[arkham6]

Instead of "Indonesia has apparently decided to play the IP game, with the world's health at stake.", you could easily say "American Drug company decided to play the IP game, with Indonesia's health at stake."

I'd be pissed too if i was indonesia.

Re:Alternate first sentence

[Rufty]

Indonesia does the grunt-work of collecting the samples, for free. The drug companies, Baxter et al., charge for the "IP" of the drugs made based from these samples. Not just the drugs, the IP that Indonesia helped gather. At the very least this warrents some share of the IP, say, gratis licences to manufacture the drugs so researched.