Grain Commission okays draft variety licensing agreement with WSU

Washington Ag Today October 10, 2011 At its recent meeting the Washington Grain Commission approved a draft agreement between it and the Washington State University Research Foundation that establishes a process for licensing wheat varieties developed at WSU. Commission member Mike Miller of Ritzville elaborates on what this means.

Miller: “It is providing an avenue one, to provide assure ownership of a variety or any kind of germless that comes out of the land grant university, and whether there are royalties attached, those are all variable variety by variety. It also helps with the Farmers Yield Initiative that if there is PVP or anything proprietary we have in document form and procedure that you can follow through in enforcement of that. It also provides a revenue stream into WSU‘s breeding programs, that if there is a royalty on a variety it would trickle back into the wheat breeding program itself.”

What types of varieties might be licensed?

Miller: “It could be a novel trait or it could simply be the release of a variety for a niche market. Like I said, if it is licensing it does not necessarily mean royalty. There is a big difference between the two and I think that is our job to educate the public and the people that provide funding for these programs.”

Miller says most of the land grant universities in the United States are already licensing everything.

I’m Bob Hoff and that’s Washington Ag Today on Northwest Aginfo Net.

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