In support of the Aligning Science Across Parkinson’s (ASAP) strategic objectives of supporting collaboration, generating resources, and democratizing access to data, the Global Parkinson’s Genetics Program (GP2) has been established as a pre-competitive consortium. All ASAP programs strive to ensure adherence to open data and open science, tenets which inform GP2’s intellectual property (IP) policy, especially as GP2 will incorporate many data subjects from underrepresented minorities in research. GP2’s intellectual property policy is briefly summarized below.
GP2 IP Policy
- All rights to pre-existing IP that is used in connection with the GP2 data will remain with the owner of such IP. GP2 will not acquire any rights in or to any pre-existing IP or improvements thereto.
- Users agree not to file a patent application, copyright, or assert trade secrets or other IP on research discoveries (including improvements to pre-existing IP) made using data from GP2 (except that articles divulging research discoveries may be copyrighted). For example, if someone creates or improves an algorithm using GP2 data, they will not claim IP on this algorithm. (An “improvement” is a modification to, variation of, or derivation from the original IP.)
- For more information, please email [email protected]
GP2 is committed to open science and to creating a foundational resource for the Parkinson’s disease research community. Further, the following points support the decision to prohibit the generation of new IP using GP2 data:
- A rising tide lifts all boats. The need to better understand the genetic basis of Parkinson’s disease and to make the understanding of the genetic basis of Parkinson’s disease globally relevant is a field-wide challenge. Ensuring that any findings coming out of GP2 can be widely shared and leveraged advances the entire Parkinson’s disease research field. These challenges are too large and complex for any one group to tackle on its own.
- Power in numbers. A pre-competitive environment encourages collaboration, results-sharing, and replication. Bringing together multiple stakeholders helps to avoid duplication of efforts, which leads to better prioritization of resources. GP2 encourages contributions of samples, data, and analyses from academic and industry groups and is committed to making data available to the entire research community as rapidly as possible. In addition, encouraging networking is a key component of GP2.
- Every cohort counts. GP2 is possible because of the contributions of data and DNA from investigators and study sponsors that agree to join the collaboration. Many of these cohorts already have policies in place that do not allow IP generation. If GP2 data users could create a competitive advantage based on contributed data, cohorts would be disincentivized from contributing their materials.
Questions? Email [email protected]