Historically, the use of legal frameworks to claim proprietary rights in the products of agricultural science was limited to the private sector. Public institutions, including CGIAR, treated their creations as the common heritage of humankind. Scientific, economic, and legal changes unsettled this public–private balance in the 1980s, provoking a reimagination of the role of intellectual property in research and development. Three distinct theories about how CGIAR should respond to the global expansion of intellectual property in agriculture emerged. Maximalists embraced proprietary legal claims, adaptationists advocated for cautious accommodation, and rejectionists viewed intellectual property as ancillary to the CGIAR mission. This chapter traces the history of intellectual property debates within CGIAR from 1990 to 2020, arguing that over time, the adaptationist approach prevailed as institutional governance structures developed. Although current policies permit each CGIAR center to embrace rejectionism or maximalism to a certain extent, the rejectionist theory has been marginalized at the system level, while a global capitalist approach to agricultural science has taken root.

Providing sufficient, healthy food to a rapidly growing world population requires maximising agricultural innovation and its use. Intellectual Property (IP) can play an important enabling role, but is also seen by some as an obstacle. This chapter discusses the root causes of the negative perception of IP and explores solutions that can foster a constructive and ethical use of IP. Patents and plant breeders’ rights provide incentives for different plant-related innovations, which can in principle be complementary, fostering a broad range of innovations. Current tension between the two systems seems to result less from what can be protected, and more from a non-harmonized use of rights resulting from the two systems. The chapter argues that solutions exist, especially if they rely on a combination of industry-based provisions, encouraged and supported by legislative frameworks. These can achieve a cultural shift from “exclusivity and value capture” to “access and benefit sharing” and encourage an ethical use of patents on seeds: one that does not limit access to genetic resources and solutions for food security. The international licensing platform for vegetables, based on the principle of “free access but not access for free”, is an example of such a new use of IP.