Finding a place for agriculture in Intellectual Property Law

Agricultural and intellectual property have a complex, but largely neglected history. Intellectual property has long played an important role in many areas of agriculture from the breeding of new crops and the design of farm equipment through to the way agricultural produce is described, marketed and labelled. Despite this, intellectual property law’s interaction with agriculture has attracted comparatively little attention or interest. Over the last decade, the situation has changed, primarily as a result of a growing awareness of the role that intellectual property law plays in relation to food security. Given the use of new scientific and technical innovations across the food chain – whether the use of molecular markers in breeding, the adoption of nano-based biomarkers to trace proprietary products, or the increased use of precision agriculture and data-driven smart farming – it seems that this trend is only set to continue in the future.