| Sumario: | Public and private nonprofit institutions worldwide engaged in agricultural research and biotechnology are increasingly active participants in intellectual property transactions, interacting with the for-profit sector and even spawning private entities of their own. Notably absent from the group of nonprofit insti-tutes seeking patent protection are the 16 centers of the Consultative Group on International Agriculture Research (CGIAR). Located primarily in developing countries, only a few centers have obtained patent protection for their inventions. Nonprofit research institutions are not in the business of selling products to con-sumers. If they are to realize a return on their investment, they must sell rights to their technologies to commercial entities or other research institutions rather than make them freely available. A nonprofit entity may, for example, exclusively license technology to a commercial partner, license the technology itself nonexclusively, or use the technology as the foundation for a spin-off company.
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