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Bruce, Ann --- "The Public Domain: Ideology vs. Interest" [2007] ELECD 162; in Waelde, Charlotte; MacQueen, Hector (eds), "Intellectual Property" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2007)

Book Title: Intellectual Property

Editor(s): Waelde, Charlotte; MacQueen, Hector

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781845428747

Section: Chapter 14

Section Title: The Public Domain: Ideology vs. Interest

Author(s): Bruce, Ann

Number of pages: 11

Extract:

14. The public domain: ideology vs.
interest
Ann Bruce*

1 INTRODUCTION
This chapter considers the issue of science in the public domain and reflects
how different interests and ideologies are dealt with in this context. I take the
`private' domain to represent the situation where the decision-making influences
rest primarily with bodies of scientific and other `experts' acting in private, for
example, in government advisory committees. In this model only the specific
scientists involved are deemed to have `competence' in the area of science, to
give advice on risks, likely consequences and future prospects. Over the last
decade or so, this model of decision making has been increasingly challenged.
There have been growing demands to recognise the role of a wider range of
people and publics to influence decisions in science, and I take this to represent
the move of science from the `private' to the `public' domain.
Why has this happened? Part of the answer is a perceived crisis in confidence
in established scientific advice. The House of Lords Select Committee on Sci-
ence and Technology (2002) describes it as follows:

Public confidence in scientific advice to Government has been rocked by a series of
events, culminating in the BSE fiasco, and many people are deeply uneasy about the
huge opportunities presented by areas of science including biotechnology and infor-
mation technology, which seem to be advancing far ahead of their awareness and
assent.1

There are therefore two aspects to this pressure to move science into the ...