The attack of the clones: Patent law and stem cell research

This article considers the integral role played by patent law in respect of stem cell research. It highlights concerns about commercialization, access to essential medicines and bioethics. The article maintains that there is a fundamental ambiguity in the Patents Act 1990 (Cth) as to whether stem cell research is patentable subject matter. There is a need to revise the legislation in light of the establishment of the National Stem Cell Centre and the passing of the Research Involving Embryos Act 2002 (Cth). The article raises concerns about the strong patent protection secured by the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation and Geron Corporation in respect of stem cell research in the United States. It contends that a number of legal reforms could safeguard access to stem cell lines, and resulting drugs and therapies. Finally, this article explores how ethical concerns are addressed within the framework of the European Biotechnology Directive. It examines the decision of the European Patent Office in relation to the so-called Edinburgh patent, and the inquiry of the European Group on Ethics in Science and New Technologies into The Ethical Aspects of Patenting Involving Human Stem Cells.

The grapes of wrath: The Coonawarra dispute, geographical indications and international trade

The famous wine region of Coonawarra in South Australia has been promoted as ’Australia's other Red Centre', emphasizing its terra rossa soil and its cabernet sauvignon. In his atlas of the wine regions of Australia, John Beeston comments upon the rich and contested history of the region: ’Coonawarra is certainly the most famous cabernet sauvignon region in Australia, and some would argue, the most renowned wine region in Australia per se'. A reporter, Penelope Debelle, captures a sense of the legal conflict over the parameters of the boundaries of Coonawarra: ’Behind the name Coonawarra, an inglorious contest is being waged that pits the romance of South Australia's terra rossa cool-climate wine region against the cold commercial reality of the label.'This Chapter tells the story behind the Coonawarra litigation, addressing the parties to the dispute; the legal and historical context of the case; and the immediate impact case, as well as its lingering significance. It considers the ’Coonawarra' case as, very literally, a landmark in Australian jurisprudence in respect of intellectual property. This chapter engages in the methodology of ’legal storytelling'. In the field of new historicism, the use of anecdotes - petite histoire - has been seen as a useful way of challenging grand historical narratives. Joel Fineman has observed that the anecdote is ’the literary form or genre that uniquely refers to the real.' This chapter has three parts. Part 1 outlines the European Community - Australia Wine Agreement 1994, and the operation of the Australian Wine and Brandy Corporation Act 1980 (Cth). Part 2 considers the various stages of the dispute over the Coonawarra region - moving from the decision of the Geographical Indications Committee, to the ruling of the Administrative Appeals Tribunal; and the conclusive decision of the Full Court of the Federal Court of Australia. Part 3 examines the implications of the Coonawarra litigation for other wine regions of Australia - most notably, the King Valley in Victoria; but also the Hunter Valley in the New South Wales; and the Margaret River in Western Australia. The conclusion considers the ramifications of the European Community-Australia Wine Agreement 2007, which has been initialed by both sides.

Minimising the failure of rail joints through managing the localised condition of track

To effectively address the high rate of failure of Insulated Rail Joints (IRJs) in the heavy haul lines, a research plan was designed and implemented with particular attention to understand their mechanical behaviour and deterioration process. In this paper, part of this ongoing research is described. During the past decades many studies have tried to improve the service life of IRJs by introducing a new structural design or material for IRJ components. This paper looks into this problem from a different perspective highlighting the significance of localised condition of track to the loads and responses of the IRJs. Results from a series of field measurements conducted in a rail track within the Australian Rail Track Corporation (ARTC) network are discussed. The interactive effects of IRJ responses and localised track condition are further investigated using the results obtained from numerical simulations. The field measurements and the simulation results provide valuable insight on the influence of track condition to the behaviour of IRJs.

Spine curvature analysis between participants with obesity and normal weight participants: A biplanar electromagnetic device measurement

To analyse and compare standing thoracolumbar curves in normal weight participants and participants with obesity, using an electromagnetic device, and to analyse the measurement reliability. Material and Methods. Cross-sectional study was carried out. 36 individuals were divided into two groups (normal-weight and participants with obesity) according to their waist circumference. The reference points (T1–T8–L1–L5 and both posterior superior iliac spines) were used to perform a description of thoracolumbar curvature in the sagittal and coronal planes. A transformation from the global coordinate system was performed and thoracolumbar curves were adjusted by fifth-order polynomial equations. The tangents of the first and fifth lumbar vertebrae and the first thoracic vertebra were determined from their derivatives. The reliability of the measurement was assessed according to the internal consistency of the measure and the thoracolumbar curvature angles were compared between groups. Results. Cronbach’s alpha values ranged between 0.824 (95% CI: 0.776–0.847) and 0.918 (95% CI: 0.903–0.949). In the coronal plane, no significant differences were found between groups; however, in sagittal plane, significant differences were observed for thoracic kyphosis. Conclusion. There were significant differences in thoracic kyphosis in the sagittal plane between two groups of young adults grouped according to their waist circumference.

Maintaining our rage: Inside Australia's longest-running music video program

This research presents an insider's account of rage, Australia's longest-running music video program. The research's significance is that there has been scarce scholarly analysis of this idiosyncratic ABC program, despite its longevity and uniqueness. The thesis takes a reflective and reflexive narrative journey across rage's decades, presenting the accounts of the program makers, aided by the perspective of an embedded researcher, the program's former Series Producer. This work addresses the rage research gap and contributes to the scholarly discussion on music video and its contexts, the ABC, public service broadcasting, creative labour, and the cultural sense-making of television producers.

A new registration method based on Log-Euclidean tensor metrics and its application to genetic studies

In structural brain MRI, group differences or changes in brain structures can be detected using Tensor-Based Morphometry (TBM). This method consists of two steps: (1) a non-linear registration step, that aligns all of the images to a common template, and (2) a subsequent statistical analysis. The numerous registration methods that have recently been developed differ in their detection sensitivity when used for TBM, and detection power is paramount in epidemological studies or drug trials. We therefore developed a new fluid registration method that computes the mappings and performs statistics on them in a consistent way, providing a bridge between TBM registration and statistics. We used the Log-Euclidean framework to define a new regularizer that is a fluid extension of the Riemannian elasticity, which assures diffeomorphic transformations. This regularizer constrains the symmetrized Jacobian matrix, also called the deformation tensor. We applied our method to an MRI dataset from 40 fraternal and identical twins, to revealed voxelwise measures of average volumetric differences in brain structure for subjects with different degrees of genetic resemblance.

Comparison of fractional and geodesic anisotropy in diffusion tensor images of 90 monozygotic and dizygotic twins

We used diffusion tensor magnetic resonance imaging (DTI) to reveal the extent of genetic effects on brain fiber microstructure, based on tensor-derived measures, in 22 pairs of monozygotic (MZ) twins and 23 pairs of dizygotic (DZ) twins (90 scans). After Log-Euclidean denoising to remove rank-deficient tensors, DTI volumes were fluidly registered by high-dimensional mapping of co-registered MP-RAGE scans to a geometrically-centered mean neuroanatomical template. After tensor reorientation using the strain of the 3D fluid transformation, we computed two widely used scalar measures of fiber integrity: fractional anisotropy (FA), and geodesic anisotropy (GA), which measures the geodesic distance between tensors in the symmetric positive-definite tensor manifold. Spatial maps of intraclass correlations (r) between MZ and DZ twins were compared to compute maps of Falconer's heritability statistics, i.e. the proportion of population variance explainable by genetic differences among individuals. Cumulative distribution plots (CDF) of effect sizes showed that the manifold measure, GA, comparably the Euclidean measure, FA, in detecting genetic correlations. While maps were relatively noisy, the CDFs showed promise for detecting genetic influences on brain fiber integrity as the current sample expands.

A social licence to operate: Corporate social responsibility, local communities and the constitution of global production networks

This article contributes to the theorization of the role of informal regulation (undertaken by leading firms) in the ongoing organization of global production networks. It does so through a qualitative case study of BHP Billiton's Ravensthorpe Nickel Operation (RNO) in the rural Shire of Ravensthorpe in Western Australia. This less tangible, and to date under-researched, dimension of global production networks is foregrounded through a focus on the corporate social responsibility strategy implemented by RNO in the service of achieving and/or demonstrating a broader ‘social licence to operate’. This ‘licence’ functions – beyond the corporation – as a legitimated and legitimating multi-scalar mechanism through which to gain and maintain access to mineral resources and thus to establish viable and ongoing global production networks. Further, this informal regulation is shown to shape social relations and qualities of place conducive to competitive global mineral extraction and to facilitate the positioning of local communities and places in mineral global production networks.

The alchemy of junk: patent law and non-coding DNA

This article considers the recent international controversy over the patents held by a Melbourne firm, Genetic Technologies Limited (GTG), in respect of non-coding DNA and genomic mapping. It explores the ramifications of the GTG dispute in terms of licensing, litigation, and policy reform, and—as a result of this dispute—the perceived conflict between law and science. GTG has embarked upon an ambitious licensing program with twenty seven commercial licensees and five research licensees. Most significantly, GTG has obtained an exclusive licence from Myriad Genetics to use and exploit its medical diagnostics in Australia, New Zealand, and the Asia-Pacific region. In the US, GTG brought a legal action for patent infringement against the Applera Corporation and its subsidiaries. In response, Applera counterclaimed that the patents of GTG were invalid because they failed to comply with the requirements of US patent law, such as novelty, inventive step, and written specifications. In New Zealand, the Auckland District Health Board brought legal action in the High Court, seeking a declaration that the patents of GTG were invalid, and that, in any case, the Board has not infringed them. The New Zealand Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Economic Development have reported to Cabinet on the issues relating to the patenting of genetic material. Similarly, the Australian Law Reform Commission (ALRC) has also engaged in an inquiry into gene patents and human health; and the Advisory Council on Intellectual Property (ACIP) has considered whether there should be a new defence in respect of experimental use and research.

Information feudalism: Who owns the knowledge economy? A book review

Back in 1995, Peter Drahos wrote a futuristic article called ‘Information feudalism in the information society’. It took the form of an imagined history of the information society in the year 2015. Drahos provided a pessimistic vision of the future, in which the information age was ruled by the private owners of intellectual property. He ended with the bleak, Hobbesian image: "It is unimaginable that the information society of the 21st century could be like this. And yet if abstract objects fall out of the intellectual commons and are enclosed by private owners, private, arbitrary, unchecked global power will become a part of life in the information society. A world in which seed rights, algorithms, DNA, and chemical formulas are owned by a few, a world in which information flows can be coordinated by information-media barons, might indeed be information feudalism (p. 222)." This science fiction assumed that a small number of states would dominate the emerging international regulatory order set up under the World Trade Organization. In Information Feudalism: Who Owns the Knowledge Economy?, Peter Drahos and his collaborator John Braithwaite reprise and expand upon the themes first developed in that article. The authors contend: "Information feudalism is a regime of property rights that is not economicallyefficient, and does not get the balance right between rewarding innovation and diffusing it. Like feudalism, it rewards guilds instead of inventive individual citizens. It makes democratic citizens trespassers on knowledge that should be the common heritage of humankind, their educational birthright. Ironically, information feudalism, by dismantling the publicness of knowledge, will eventually rob the knowledge economy of much of its productivity (p. 219)." Drahos and Braithwaite emphasise that the title Information Feudalism is not intended to be taken at face value by literal-minded readers, and crudely equated with medieval feudalism. Rather, the title serves as a suggestive metaphor. It designates the transfer of knowledge from the intellectual commons to private corporation under the regime of intellectual property.

Precious images: Copyright law and television broadcasts

Over the last several years, Australian media magnate Kerry Packer has sought to maximise the value of the intellectual property assets of the television station Channel Nine. He has made a concerted effort to expand the scope of copyright protection over television broadcasts screened. The television station Channel Nine has taken a number of legal actions against its rivals and competitors - including the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and Network Ten. It has alleged that the broadcasters have used substantial parts of copyrighted television broadcasts without their permission.

Virtual countries: Internet domain names and geographical terms

This paper examines the dispute between the Seattle company Virtual Countries Inc. and the Republic of South Africa over the ownership of the domain name address southafrica.com. The first part of the paper deals with the pre-emptive litigation taken by Virtual Countries Inc. in a District Court of the United States. The second part considers the possible arbitration of the dispute under the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Process of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) and examines the wider implications of this dispute for the jurisdiction and the governance of ICANN. The final section of the paper evaluates the Final Report of the Second WIPO Internet Domain Name Process.

Owning omega-3: Monsanto and the invention of meat

In August of 2010, Anna Salleh of the Science Unit of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation broke a story about Monsanto seeking to patent the enhancement of meat, including omega-3 fatty acids: ‘Enhanced port is sparking debate over the ethics of placing patents on food. Patent applications covering the enhancement of meat, including pork with omega-3 fatty acids, are stimulating debate over the ethics and legalities of claiming intellectual property over food. Monsanto has filed patents that cover the feeding of animals soybeans, which have been genetically modified by the company to contain stearidonic acid (SDA), a plant-derived omega-3 fatty acid... Omega-3s have been linked to improved cardiovascular health and there are many companies engineering them into foodstuffs. But the new patent applications have touched a raw nerve among those who see them as an attempt by the company to exert control over the food chain.’ This article providers a critical evaluation of the controversy of Monsanto’s patent applications, and the larger issues over patenting food. It first considers the patent portfolio of Monsanto; the nature of the patent claims; and the examination of the claims by patent examiners. Second, it examines the withdrawal and revision of the patent claims by Monsanto in the wake of criticism by patent authorities and the public disquiet over the controversial application. Third, this article considers the larger policy issues raised by Monsanto’s patent applications – including the patenting of plants, animals, and foodstuffs. There is also a consideration of the impact of patents upon the administration of health-care, competition, and research.

Client learning and the performance of collaborative infrastructure projects

Australia is a leading user of collaborative procurement methods, which are used to deliver large and complex infrastructure projects. Project alliances, Early Contractor Involvement (ECI), and partnering are typical examples of collaborative procurement models. In order to increase procurement effectiveness and value for money (VfM), clients have adopted various learning strategies for new contract development. However client learning strategies and behaviours have not been systematically analysed before. Therefore, the current paper undertakes a literature review addressing the research question “How can client learning capabilities be effectively understood?”. From the resource-based and dynamic capability perspectives, this paper proposes that the collaborative learning capability (CLC) of clients drives procurement model evolution. Learning routines underpinning CLC carry out exploratory, transformative and exploitative learning phases associated with collaborative project delivery. This learning improves operating routines, and ultimately performance. The conceptualization of CLC and the three sequential learning phases is used to analyse the evidence in the construction management literature. The main contribution of this study is the presentation of a theoretical foundation for future empirical studies to unveil effective learning strategies, which help clients to improve the performance of collaborative projects in the dynamic infrastructure market.

Developing green procurement framework for construction projects in Malaysia

With the current emerging development pattern in Malaysia, Malaysian government has enthusiastically promoted green procurement approach that will help the construction project being green. Previous studies highlighted that the concept of green procurement is still very new to the Malaysian construction industry, and this increases the needs for further research in this area. This paper addresses the needs of guidelines for stakeholders to procure environmentally-friendly construction. Currently, there is a limited practical guideline for stakeholders to procure green projects. This paper discusses the progress to date of a research project aimed at developing a green procurement framework for construction projects in the Malaysian construction industry. This framework will guide the stakeholders to plan the green procurement implementation to procure a construction projects. Through literature and expert opinion, this paper explores the list of green practices within procurement practices which becomes the basis to develop a survey instrument that will be used in the later part of this study. The paper will shed useful information for construction researchers and practitioners in exploring the green procurement concept for construction industry in Malaysia.