Patent disclosure requirements and benefit sharing: A counterfactual case of Morocco's argan oil

This article uses the seemingly promising case of Morocco's argan oil to assess the value of patent disclosure requirements (PDRs) as a policy instrument aimed at improving the sharing of biodiversity benefits. After introducing the disclosure requirements debate and discussing relevant features of the argan oil case, I construct a simple counterfactual by asking: “How would PDRs have changed benefit sharing in the argan oil case?” From this case, three practical considerations emerge that shed a realistic, if cautious, light on the marginal value of PDRs as a benefit sharing mechanism: (1) PDRs require an accompanying national biodiversity regime but their relative value is inversely proportional to regime strength (2) PDRs should be assessed based on the additional compliance incentives they provide and median, not blockbuster, patent values and (3) the alternative to no PDRs and no regime is not zero benefits. While these considerations are inherently country-specific, PDRs should generally be assessed at the margin rather than in vague conceptual and aggregate ways.