Intellectual Property (IP) has significant economic and social implications, as it is a tool for the development of new technologies and products that will eventually be available to the society. Intellectual property rights (IPRs) are the rights granted to creators and inventors to control the use of their productions. These inventors, scientists and many other individuals and industries depend on IPRs for a return on their investments, and just as important, returns on future investments.

Biotechnology is a fast-moving field in which new products and services are being developed from an increasingly complex and cumulative set of underlying technologies that are protected by IPRs, such as the sequencing of genes, creating systems to selectively express, regulate or silence genes, and predicting protein structure and function. While these patented technologies contribute to rapid advancements in the life sciences and offer tremendous promise for improving human health and furthering sustainable economic development, a serious impediment to accessing these technologies is the ability to navigate the myriad of intellectual property rights covering them.

An increasingly apparent trend is for industries to attempt to acquire new technologies developed by other organisations while at the same time generating income by licensing out their own intellectual property. Intellectual property rights then are becoming an increasingly important vehicle for diffusing technology, as well as for economic development. Furthermore, as companies look to make greater use of intellectual property outside their own businesses, the supply of knowledge available in the marketplace is likely to increase-there is thus a need for capacity building in terms of how to access and monitor information about these new technologies and applications, including the acquisition, absorption, adaptation, development and management of intellectual property.