End-Point versus Point of Sale Levying of Plant Breeding Royalties: An Economic Analysis using Optimal Control Theory

Rodney Beard

MPRA Paper from University Library of Munich, Germany

Abstract: Intellectual property rights for commercial crops have become in- creasingly controversial as plant breeders have sought to protect their investment through licensing and royalties, and farmers, in particular ecologically-oriented farmers, have promoted seed-saving as a conser- vation measure. Plant breeders have argued that seed saving reduces sales to breeders and that the imposition of royalties is necessary to maintain sales and to compensate them for the intellectual property invested in commercial varieties. These issues are explored here. In this paper, an optimal control model of seed purchase decisions in the presence of seed saving is developed. The model is used to analyze the impact of both point of sale royalties and end-point royalties on seed puchase decisions. The two approaches to levying royalties are then compared and policy conclusions drawn.

Keywords: Agricultural economics; plant breeding; intellectual property; royalties (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C61 Q12 Q16 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2008-02-15
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-agr, nep-ipr and nep-pr~
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pra:mprapa:7178

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