专利无法提高作物产量

保护知识产权（IPR）的政策创新通常不鼓励技术转移到发展中国家或增加农作物的收率，一个研究表明。

“Intellectual property rights are not all they are cracked up to be,” says David Spielman, a co-author of the study and researcher at the International Food Policy Research Institute, based in the United States. “They are certainly not a silver bullet to attract investment and technology transfer intobeplay下载官网西西软件。”

“除非您有能力执行它们，否则知识产权是没有用的。”

美国南达科他州立大学的Deepthi Kolady

Published in这Journal of Development Studies, the study found that the impact of IPRs on yields varies hugely between crops, making one-size-fits-all approaches to innovation difficult.

IP protection can take legal form in patents or be ensured biologically, for example by making hybrids of existing crops difficult to copy or breed. In international development, such forms of IP assertion are seen as important to get companies to roll out technologies and improved crop varieties among farmers.

But Spielman says it is unclear how effective IPRs are at boosting agriculture. The study, published on 12 October, investigates links between IPRs and the yield of eight major crops, including rice, maize, cotton and wheat, between 1961 and 2010.

研究人员发现,尽管收益率差距是en developing countries and the world’s top producers of the studied crops narrowed during this period, legal IPRs only played a marginal role in this.

该研究说，生物知识产权对某些农作物产生了更大的影响。例如，要种植一些玉米和棉花作物，农民必须每年购买种子，使这些产品足够有利可图，可以保证在发展中国家的研究和营销中进行私人投资。

这findings should force policymakers to go beyond intellectual property when designing tools to increase agricultural yields, says Spielman.

他说，例如，重要的是要提高贫困国家的科学能力，因为公司希望在现场开发其产品的好研究人员。他补充说，科学支出还将允许政府利用农业创新，并使他们能够为个人作物计划正确的策略。

但是，美国南达科他州立大学的经济学家迪迪·科拉迪（Deepthi Kolady）表示，尽管斯皮尔曼（Spielman）确定了复杂性，发展中国家不应放弃实施严格的IP制度。

毕竟，他们在发达国家有所作为，科拉迪说：她在2008年合着的研究directly linked the development of high-yield wheat in the United States to the implementation of legal protection for new plant varieties.

但是，要复制这一成功，各国需要一个强大的法律制度来防止任何违规行为。“除非您有能力执行它们，否则知识产权是没有用的。”