Edition 13 - May 2003
Edition 13 - May 2003 |
Development of BCCM Material Transfer Agreement |
A "Material Transfer Agreement" (MTA) is a generic term for documents
used in the context of the transfer of any kind of biological material (plants,
animals, microbes) from one institution to another, nationally as well as internationally.
An MTA lays down the conditions of transfer of the biological material, that
is, the rights and duties of the provider and the recipient of the material.
It aims to facilitate access to biological materials and to allow fair and
equitable sharing of the benefits derived from their use. An MTA can be either
a standard form with basic standard requirements, such as a shipment document,
a standard delivery notice, or a standard invoice, or a more detailed contract
including special terms that are mutually agreed upon.
The provisions of an MTA are rooted in several national and international
laws. There are at least four international conventions and organisations that
explicitly refer to the voluntary or obligatory use of an MTA. Appropriate
MTAs are promoted by the Ad Hoc Open-Ended Working Group on Access and Benefit-Sharing
of the Convention on Biological Diversity (1) and by the Intergovernmental
Committee on Intellectual Property and Genetic Resources, Traditional Knowledge
and Folklore of the World Intellectual Property Organisation. The OECD Biological
Resources Centres (BRC) Task Force wants to make the use of MTAs by BRCs compulsory.
For plant genetic resources, the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources
for Food and Agriculture will set out the conditions for access and benefit-sharing
in an adequate MTA.
Concerning microbial resources, there is convergence between the CBD, the WIPO
and the OECD approaches. The WIPO Intergovernmental Committee on Intellectual
Property and Genetic Resources, Traditional Knowledge and Folklore proposes
to draw up guidelines for contractual practices including model IPR clauses
in an MTA. The OECD Task Force on Biological Resources Centres suggests the
compulsory use of MTAs with appropriate IPR provisions. Complementarily, the
CBD states "The following principles or basic requirements could be considered
for the development of mutually agreed terms…developing standardized
material transfer agreements."
In the medium term, the use of MTAs will thus be the rule for all biological
and micro-biological material transfers.
The standard BCCM Material Transfer Agreement meets these recent international
legal requirements for microbial material transfer. Logically, it follows upon
the harbinger MOSAICC project results and takes advantage of the results of
the MOSAICC workshop (2). The co-ordinator of the MOSAICC project has written
an MTA in such way that it is applicable to most cases of transfers of microbial
resources; whether the microbial resources are used only for non-commercial
purposes (such as teaching or basic research such as taxonomy) or used in processes
that could lead to commercial applications.
The BCCM MTA is neither the first nor the only one. It is based on the MOSAICC
experience and other national models. For instance, it has the same concern
as the "Uniform Biological Material Transfer Agreement" for a minimum
level of standardisation necessary for efficient exchanges. In this view, UBMTA
is a good example: this standard MTA was prepared in 1995 and is now used by
more than 200 research institutions in the US. However, its scope is more limited
than the BCCM MTA. Most culture collections in Europe are now developing an
MTA and look for harmonisation within the European Research Area and over the
European continent at large.
As the BCCM is a network, the successive steps to create these documents
were the following: redaction of the MTA, with consultation of the MOSAICC
partners
and other experts co-operating with BCCM; presentation of the documents to
the BCCM collections for a first information round; submission of the documents
to the relevant IP office of the Ministry of Economic affairs for control
of the conformity of the MTA with the legal requirements at the national,
European,
and international levels; submission of the documents to each host institution
to check the compatibility of the MTA with the policy of each institution,
and at present, finalisation of the MTA.
The BCCM MTA has three main functions:
- to make microbial resources traceable and then to allow potential benefit
sharing to take place;
- to preserve present or potential intellectual property rights of inventors
according to the relevant rules stated in the TRIPS (3) and in the conventions
administrated by WIPO (4);
- to guarantee the quality of the microbial resources and the related information
following the OECD recommendations.
The MTA will be printed on the reverse side of BCCM delivery notes and invoices
to assure your rights and positive interaction with the BCCM.
1. CBD. Rio de Janeiro, 5 June 92. As of 13 December 2002, 187 parties. In April 2002, the Fifth Conference of the Parties adopted the "Draft Bonn Guidelines on Access to Genetic Resources and Fair and Equitable Sharing of the Benefits Arising out of their Utilization" that details the contents of MTA.
2. See edition 7 of BCCM News.
3. Trade-Related aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS agreement, Marrakech, 15 April 94). Annex 1C of the WTO creation act that counts 146 members on 4 April 2003.
4. PCT – Patent Cooperation Treaty (Last modified in October 3, 2001); Patent Law treaty (Geneva, June 1, 2000); Budapest Treaty on the International Recognition of the Deposit of Micro-organisms for the Purposes of Patent Procedure (Budapest, 28 April 77. As of April 25, 2003, 56 States and 3 intergovernmental bodies).
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