The legal question of the obtention of human stem cells for biomedical research. Legislation policy considerations]

The future Law on Biomedical Research, whose draft bill has been approved by the Council of Ministers and that will soon begin its parliamentary process of approval, will regulate, among other matters, the research with embryos. Likewise, it will make a pronouncement on the so-called therapeutic cloning. This report makes a detailed analysis of different matters that must be borne in mind by the legislator in order to face the process of evaluation and approval of said Law in relation with the aforementioned matters. It makes a special analysis of the legal texts of an international nature to which Spain is unavoidably subjected to, in such a way that the legislative text that will finally be approved is not contrary to the dispositions that are within such.     

Patenting and Invention Activity of U.S. Scientists and Engineers in the Academic Sector: Comparisons with Industry

Analyses have been performed of the patenting and invention activity of U.S. scientists and engineers (S&Es) in the academic sector and comparisons have been made with their counterparts in industry. The analyses are based upon survey questions concerning patent applications, grant awards and commercialization outcomes from two 1995 National Science Foundation (NSF) nationally representative workforce surveys. A series of new indicators – patent activity rates, patent activity shares and patent success rates – has been defined and utilized to examine patent activity by employment sector, educational field, demographic variables, status and location of university faculty, technological area, and selected S&E job characteristics. It is recommended that NSF collect data on patenting activity, including commercialization outcomes, in its surveys of the S&E workforce at least every four years. Data should also be collected on university-industry collaboration in patent activity in the U.S., and between S&Es in the U.S. and other countries.     

Predatory Innovation: A Step Beyond? (Understanding Competition in High-technology Markets)

The idea of a direct relationship between innovation and progress must be reconsidered. Innovation, in other periods of History merely pursued for the sake of Mankind, eventually turned into an grail for companies willing to see their sales increased. The last decades had witnessed another turn of the screw in that identification: innovation may be used as a weapon to destroy rivals and take over a market, regardless of any considerations of progress. Competition law is not foreign to these new circumstances. The inclusion of innovation as a variable in the context of an exclusionary strategy entails not only an important aggression to free competition, but to social welfare. Due to the novelty of these practices, competition law is still adapting itself to the new scenario. This paper explains the underlying complexity of the study of predatory innovation, establishing the foundations for its proper understanding and subsequent approach of the conclusions to market operators, legislators, judges and to society itself.     

Armed conflict,land grabs and primitive accumulation in Colombia: micro processes,macro trends and the puzzles in between

Armed conflict is widely believed to disrupt agricultural production and ‘reverse’ development, but it may also involve the violent transformation of rural economies from subsistence to commercial agriculture. The case of Las Pavas, an estate in northern Colombia, provides further evidence that armed conflict created opportunities for violent land grabs and the expansion of commercial agriculture in Colombia. However, aggregate data suggest that primitive accumulation may be only part of the story behind the massive scale of forced displacement and dispossession. A research strategy that accounts for the diversity of subnational contexts, processes and outcomes is needed.