Some believe that the commercial drive to protect IP rights, especially trade secrets and patents, slow down and otherwise interfere with the progress of scientific research by making it difficult to share information. Others believe that the commercial value of trade secrets and patents are essential to driving scientific research by rewarding the inventors. This is a debate that is only going to receive more attention as the Universities increase their involvement in the commercial sphere.
The Toronto Star recently reported on an initiative at the University of Toronto to bring together academic and industry researchers to conduct basic research on the three-dimensional structure of human proteins in an open access environment. Apparently, more than 100 laboratories participate in the corsortium, including three pharmaceutical companies. All of its findings are available free to any scientist.
