188 



14 

 Inperfect property rights In Intellectual property, including United patent 

 life, and the simple economics of optimal pricing for this property. 



Considerable opportunities exist for more collaboration and Joint 

 ventures between the public and private sectors for the development of new 

 Innovations. This is an area where care Is needed so that general public 

 support and confidence in the system will not be undermined. Nevertheless, 

 Joint ventures that share costs and benefits have the potential for engaging 

 the private sector in supporting advances In pretechnology sciences that are 

 needed for new technologies. These Joint venture agreements need to be 

 carefully considered because the private sector can equally draw the public 

 sector into supporting research that the private firms would undertake anyway. 

 Even in a well drawn contract, the sharing of benefits is an important issue. 

 Cooperating firms can reasonably expect exclusive licenses, but the public 

 can reasonable expect some limits to be placed on pricing of commercialized 

 products resulting from the projects. Another alternative to restrictions on 

 the price of new innovations would be the possibility of sharing profits on the 

 new innovations with this money going back into an unrestricted fund for public 

 agricultural research. These Joint ventures hold considerable potential for 

 speeding the development of important new technologies, e.g., pharmaceuticals 

 for the treatment of human and animal diseases , technologies to enhance 

 environmental quality. 



Second, I recommend that efforts to set national priorities for 

 agricultural reseach be limited primarily to establishing or insuring the 

 general science and pretechnology scientific base for future applied public 

 research and private R&O. These are areas where the pure public good 

 Justifications for public provision and national planning are strongest. 

 This Includes the scientific base for biotechnology, environmental quality. 



