從開放原始碼理論探討生物遺傳資源共享之運作模式

Abstract

隨著生物技術納入智慧財產權保護後，運用生物資源產生經濟利益之育種家權益已充分得到保障，而該權益保護所衍生的各種生物剽竊及生物資源耗竭問題，亦正由取得與利益分享體制的建立逐漸予以填補。兩者間性質雖然迥然不同，但因遺傳資源之保育及改良是相輔相成的，故應提出一種制度及規劃，作為私人利潤與改善遺傳資源公益之間的橋樑，讓有意貢獻者能有一個管道可供依循。 如同運用遺傳資源育成之品種乃屬育種家私有的權利，作物地方品系具有地域性，因此不宜視為狹義的公共財，而是應貢獻於公眾的私有財。遺傳資源的開放共享，並非是主權之拋棄，而是對他人後續使用、改作、散布行為之管理。參考自由軟體開放原始碼 (open source software) 共享使用之方法及案例，如能妥善建立遺傳資源及品種之授權及自由使用機制，可以促進遺傳資源之共享使用及改善。 本研究探討資訊軟體及文化創作智慧財產共享之方法及運作模式，如自由軟體GPL授權系統等，分析有效運作之重點及關鍵，並檢視目前部分運作中之生物遺傳資源及技術之共享方法及成果，透過再次加強釐清生物遺傳資源運用成果應予開放使用之正當性及必要性，提出「自由的開放生物碼品種」(free and open source varieties, FOSV)概念及部分架構，並建議CBD遺傳資源主權國妥善行使權利之策略方向，供有意參與之機關團體依循及政府機關規劃政策之參考。

The rights and thus economic benefits of the invention of breeders and biotechnologists who utilize biological genetic resources have been secured by intellectual property rights (IPRs). And the problems concerning exhaustion of biological resources and the biopiracy as raised by the practices of IPR laws have been dealing by the establishment of the access and benefit sharing regimes. As the intellectual property rights protect private benefits, while the conservation and biodiversity deal mostly with public benefits, their aims are irrelevant but both are important for biological genetic resources improvement. There should be a mechanism and a scheme to bridge the private intellectual property and public sharing property, such that those who improve the genetic resources have a way to donate their achievements to the public. As the varieties bred from genetic resources by breeders are subject to the breeders’ private rights, the crop land races are locally selected and/or bred, and thus should not be considered as public properties sensu stricto, but can be treated as private properties that should be contributed to public. To donate private genetic resources to the public is not the abandonment of rights but is the heritable management of their rights to the others, who can use, modify and distribute them freely. Construction of licensing and sharing mechanisms of crop varieties according to the methodology and the successful case histories of open source software can contribute to the sharing and improvement of genetic resources. The thesis discuss the running cases of sharing private intellectual property in computer software and literary domain in order to find out the key points, such as the GPL licensing scheme in free software movement. By emphasis on and affirm the reasonableness and the necessarily of sharing biological genetic resources (both the original resources and the modified resource as intellectual properties), refer to the scheme and the mechanism of implementation of free and open source software licensing in computer software domain, the idea and framework of free and open source varieties (FOSV) is brought up. The possible strategies of realizing genetic resource right for CBD parties are proposed, which may be useful to both research organizations as well as governmental policy planners.