The impact of socio-demographic factors as potential predictors of the attitudes of public sector personnel on intellectual property rights and their implications

This paper presents the results of a web-based survey done to determine the attitudes of public sector personnel in developing countries in Asia on the major implications of intellectual property rights (IPRs) to public sector institutions’ access of technologies, research focus, and dissemination of knowledge and technology. Specifically, the survey involved research administrators and scientists (n = 283) from public agricultural biotechnology research institutions in India, Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam. Estimates of ordinal logistic regression clearly show that in general, attitudes of respondents toward the implications of IPR are affected by socio-demographic characteristics with education, position held, and country of citizenship as significant influential factors. This econometric analysis may serve as reference for institutions developing capability training programmes, including identification of target training groups, to more actively promote the understanding of IPR and their implications to public research institutions in developing countries.