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Intellectual Property

What Is ‘Just’ Sharing of Digital Sequence Information?

Margo A. Bagley
Professor Bagley is a widely cited scholar on a variety of international intellectual property topics and is one of the foremost experts on international patent law issues. Her courses include domestic and international patent law, trademark law, and international intellectual property. She also co-developed Emory Law’s award-winning TI:GER program (Technological Innovation Generating Economic Results), which brings together graduate students in law, business, science, and engineering to work on start-up projects and learn the process of transforming promising research into economically viable projects. Bagley currently serves on the National Academies Committee on Advancing Commercialization from the Federal Laboratories, and previously served on the National Academies Committee on University Management of Intellectual Property: Lessons from a Generation of Experience, Research, and Dialogue. She is also an expert technical advisor to the African Union Commission in several World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) matters and is the Friend of the Chair in the WIPO Intergovernmental Committee on Intellectual Property and Genetic Resources, Traditional Knowledge and Folklore. Bagley has served as a consultant to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), the UN Food and Agriculture Organization Secretariat for the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture, and as a US Department of Commerce Commercial Law Development Program advisor.


Selected Publications

“Just” Sharing: The Virtues of Digital Sequence Information Benefit-Sharing for the Common Good, 63 Harvard International Law Journal 1 (2022)

Genome Editing in Latin America: CRISPR Patent and Licensing Policy, NCSU Genetic Engineering and Society Center (July 2021)

Exploring Intellectual Property through the Lens of Religious Thought, in Handbook on Intellectual Property Research (Irene Calboli & Maria Lilla Montagnani eds., 2021)

Intellectual Property, Access to Medicines, and Christian Tradition, in Christian Tradition and Economic Regulation (Daniel Crane ed., 2021)

Study to Identify Specific Cases of Genetic Resources and Traditional Knowledge Associated with Genetic Resources that Occur in Transboundary Situations or for Which It Is Not Possible to Grant or Obtain Prior Informed Consent, for the Convention on Biological Diversity Secretariat (August 2020) (with Frederick Perron-Welch)

Fact-finding Study on How Domestic Measures Address Benefit-sharing Arising from Commercial and Non-commercial Use of Digital Sequence Information on Genetic Resources and Address the Use of Digital Sequence Information on Genetic Resources for Research and Development, for the Convention on Biological Diversity Secretariat (February 2020) (with Elizabeth Karger, Frederick Perron-Welch & Siva Thambisetty)

Designing Disclosure: Disclosure of Cultural and Genetic Resource Utilisation in Design Protection Regimes, in The Object and Purpose of Intellectual Property (Susy Frankel ed., 2019)

The Fallacy of Defensive Protection for Traditional Knowledge, 58 Washburn Law Journal 323 (2019)

The Morality of Compulsory Licensing as an Access to Medicines Tool, 102 Minnesota Law Review 2463 (2018)

Toward an Effective Indigenous Knowledge Protection Regime: Case Study of South Africa, Centre for International Governance Innovation Policy Paper No. 207 (December 2018)

"Ask Me No Questions": The Struggle for Disclosure of Cultural and Genetic Resource Utilization in Design Applications, 20 Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment and Technology Law 975 (2018)