Background
The CGIAR Central Advisory Service on Intellectual Property was created in the year 2000. The geneticist and U.S Patent Agent Dr Victoria Henson-Apollonio is head of the unit which is hosted by Bioversity International in Rome, Italy. CAS was originally created in response to the need for a centralized intellectual property advisory service for the 15 CGIAR Centres.
Mission statementThe CAS mission is to assist the Alliance Centres of the CGIAR, their partners and the CGIAR System as a whole in a comprehensive approach to management of Centre intellectual assets, as public goods. To do this we provide transactional support, capacity building and facilitation of the sharing of experiences across the Centres. This mission implies the full spectrum of product development, distribution and effective use in a socially responsible and sustainable manner.
The overall goal/vision of CAS-IP is to enable access and use of CGIAR products for the benefit of the poor through effective IP and technology transfer management.