Protect Or Plunder?

Book excerpt: The kinds of ideas, technologies, identification of genes, even manipulations of life forms that can be owned and exploited for profit by giant corporations is a vital issue for our times. The author argues that this Western-inspired, unprecedented widening of intellectual property concepts does not in fact stimulate human creativity and the generation of kowledge. Instead, it is being exploited by transnational corporations to increase their profits at the expense of the health of ordinary people and of the age-old knowledge and independence of the world's farmers. Intellectual protection is being transformed into corporate plunder. Little wonder popular feeling runs so high against the WTO that polices this new intellectual order, and the pharmaceutical, biotech and other corporations that benefit from it.