COA Minister Lee Ching-lung explains that because the government has supplied most of the funding for agricultural research, for many years the research results were viewed as public property. Both new plant varieties and new biotechnology were simply given free of charge to farmers and fishermen. Only rarely did the government seek any protection for its intellectual property.
農委會主委李金龍指出，以往農業研究多由政府出資，研發成果被視為公共財，不論是新品種或新技術開發，都直接免費推廣給農、漁民或業者使用，很少尋求智慧財產權的保護。