The commercialization of science needs a rethink, according to a leading group of scientists and ethicists who have rolled out a new ‘manifesto’ that challenges current intellectual property (IP) rights.

The Manchester Manifesto, signed by a group including three leading scholars from the University of Manchester — Nobel Prize winning biologist John Sulston, moral philosopher John Harris, and Nobel Prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz — argues that existing patent law hinders scientific progress and hurts many in the developing world who can’t access expensive medicines. The manifesto, which serves as a ‘Hippocratic Oath’ for scientists, urges academics to use their research to benefit humanity, rather than their wallets.

“We need to consider how to balance the needs of science as an industry with the plight of those who desperately need the products of science,” Sulston and his colleagues wrote in the Guardian. “For science to continue to flourish, it is necessary that the knowledge it generates be made freely and widely available.”

Many critics took issue with Sulston et al.‘s stance on the patent system. The UK’s Chartered Institute of Patent Attorneys (CIPA) called the manifesto “ill-informed and misleading.” The Intellectual Assessment Management blog said that anti-patent publications “appear with a certain depressing regularity,” and called on the IP community to better educate the public about the benefits of commercial licensing.

Scientists alike need to be more savvy about their intellectual property. Last month, Nature Medicine ran a special news focus on biomedical patents, including an editorial calling on translational researchers to get to know their technology transfer officers to better leverage the power of their research. We also highlighted another one of Stiglitz’s ideas: to award prize money, rather than patents, to drug makers as an incentive to develop new meds.

Image: Flickr/Francis Elliott via Creative Commons