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    Place, provenance, protection : alignments, challenges, and opportunities for Māori future foods : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Food Technology at Te Kunenga ki Pūrehuroa, Massey University, Manawatū o Turitea, Palmerston North
    (Massey University, 2025-07-08) Wright, Summer Rangimaarie
    This thesis examines key alignments, challenges, and opportunities for Māori future foods, conceptualised as food production processes and outcomes that positively impact Māori and kinship networks. Beginning with a focus on plant-based future foods, a scoping interview study with Māori enterprise revealed strong alignment with Māori aspirations, including fulfilling kinship responsibilities, bringing together multiple forms of value, advancing collective wellbeing, and protecting and expressing Māori rights and interests - particularly in cultural and intellectual property. Participants identified place branding as a promising avenue to protect and develop cultural landscapes and enable future foods. The second study developed a content analysis protocol to explore the branding of Māori food and beverage packaging, with a focus on the prevalence and potential functions of place elements. Findings show that place branding is widely used by Māori enterprises, affirming its relevance to Māori future foods, while also highlighting a need to understand perceptions of Indigenous place elements. The third study used means-end chain laddering interviews to examine how critical consumers in Aotearoa New Zealand and Singapore perceive Māori place elements. It found a range of positive and negative perceptions across both contexts, which suggest viable approaches to place branding by Māori food enterprise. The thesis presents three key messages: plant-based future foods are relevant to Māori on multiple levels; Māori future foods can be enabled through place branding; and Māori place branding can support enterprise development and the protection of Māori rights and cultural property. These findings have implications for advancing Māori future foods and for growing the research and practice of decolonial Māori and Indigenous place branding. By exploring these interconnections, the thesis contributes to a deeper understanding of how Māori aspirations can shape and benefit from future food systems. It also critiques the ongoing appropriation of Māori culture by government and industry to advance broader agricultural and economic agendas. This research offers a transdisciplinary approach, addressing gaps at the intersection of Māori enterprise, future foods, Indigenous place branding, and consumption studies.
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    Biopiracy and intellectual property over natural resources : the consequences for Tobas : a comparative work with the New Zealand experience : thesis presented in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Masters of Public Policy at Massey University, Auckland, New Zealand
    (Massey University, 2007) Casal, Fernando
    Indigenous groups have always been discriminated against in Argentina. Since colonization ages their land was systematically expropriated under the, what became known as, terra nullius principle. Genocide took place not only in Argentina but in most countries of Latin America, thus only few groups remain and some of these face extinction. For the "survivors", the scenario is not promising, they are living in indigenous reserves, (most of which are not in fertile land), in very poor and unhealthy conditions facing potential diseases such as cholera and tuberculosis. The scenario is not necessarily the same for the indigenous people of New Zealand: the Maori. The conquest of the islands by British was made in a more peaceful way if compare with other cases. However, there were also wars, confiscation of lands, and suppression of traditional Maori practices. Nowadays, while Maori are integrated to the society some of the injustices of the past are seen as affecting their spiritual and material way of life. It is claimed by indigenous activists that, the Intellectual Property Regimes (IPR), under the World Trade Organization (WTO) agreements could make indigenous people face the possibility of being deprived of the free use of plants that they have been using for centuries for food and medicinal healing purposes among others, because of the patenting processes of multinational companies. In addition, aborigine communities could find themselves negotiating without full knowledge of the purpose of the extraction or the use to which the material will be put; and because of biopiracy, not receiving royalties in exchange for their knowledge of plants. In this context, their situation would become even worse. However, if these processes and agreements were being made in a more equal and fair legal context, they could obtain the royalties for the use of their knowledge by pharmaceuticals or seed companies, as other people obtain royalties for their knowledge in more "traditional" or market-oriented industrial areas. This money could help them to achieve other goals such as a more indigenous-oriented education, or start their own productive activities to give just some examples. These kind of agreements are part of a more general discussion that includes the rights of indigenous peoples to regulate their own traditional knowledge (TK), this involve: defining what TK is to any given indigenous community, as well as developing norms and standards around who outside the indigenous community can access their knowledge, under what conditions and for what benefit. This research will analyze the Argentine and the New Zealand cases to compare the public policies implemented in both countries and the effects on indigenous peoples. Detailed objectives are going to be mentioned further in this thesis.[FROM INTRODUCTION]
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    Patents, pills, the press and the poor : discourse and hegemony in news coverage of the global 'access to medicines' dispute, 1997-2003 : a thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Communication and Journalism at Massey University, Wellington, New Zealan
    (Massey University, 2012) Owen, Thomas
    In the mid‐1990s a transnational civil society campaign emerged to advocate greater essential medicines access for the majority world. The campaign mobilised on a variety of fronts, but in particular around the argument that intellectual property protection was the central impediment to equitable medicines access. The campaign argued that strong patent protection created artificially high medicine prices, and that, in the case of global HIV/AIDS, such prices prohibited medicines access for the vast majority of those in need of it. The major pharmaceutical companies disagreed, arguing instead that absolute patent protection was essential for new medicine development. When a coalition of pharmaceutical companies sued the South African government over generic medicines access in 1998, the dispute became crystalised into a dramatic mediatised conflict. This thesis examines press coverage of the medicines access dispute in key United States, British and South African news outlets over the years 1997 to 2003. Adopting Laclau and Mouffe’s discourse theory as a macro‐theoretical guide, the thesis conceptualises the media space as a field of contestation between opposed political projects seeking to hegemonically articulate their particular discourse. Prior commentary on the medicines access dispute has suggested media coverage was a key driver in publicising the civil society campaign’s message. This thesis contributes previously missing empirical data to such claims, addressing the questions: did the news media discourse on HIV/AIDS medicines transform to better reflect the civil society campaign’s arguments over those of the major pharmaceutical companies? If so, what were the principal factors influencing this transformation? Through corpus‐assisted discourse analysis of a sample of a 1,113 newspaper articles, and consideration of personal testimonies from key journalists and activists, the thesis argues the media discourse did indeed transform in favour of the civil society campaign. However, while the campaign was successful in promoting a patentbased definition of the crisis, the solution most widely adopted was one that increased aid funding and decreased medicines prices, but which left the intellectual property infrastructure largely intact. In this way, the thesis documents both the successful articulation of a counter‐hegemonic discourse within the news media, as well as the process by which this challenge was reabsorbed into pre‐existing power structures.
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    Trade secrets in New Zealand : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Business Law at Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand
    (Massey University, 1996) Stewart, Duncan
    The major problems associated with trade secret law in New Zealand are that it is confused in definition and in jurisdiction. This confusion contributes to the failure of trade secret law in some instances, particularly to protect information created in the emerging biotechnology and computer software industries. This has contributed to alternative forms of protection, notably through copyright for computer programs. From a review of the current law, categories of trade secrets are identified, including sub-patentable and patentable trade secrets. The jurisdictional dispute may be resolved if it is recognised that trade secrets represent a form of property right. To this end, the legal and economic approaches to property rights are synthesised. This synthesis is then extended to create a legal-economic model of the justifications for, and the problems with, the protection of these rights: the intellectual property rights continuum. From this model, it is concluded that some legal protection of trade secrets is justified, provided that equally harmful effects are not created. In particular, sub-patentable trade secrets may warrant greater protection, and patentable trade secrets may be over-protected. One proposal is to punish industrial espionage, although some harmful effects may result. Utility models and laws that protect trade secrets in general are considered and rejected as solutions. Instead, patents of improvement (PI) are proposed which would protect trade secrets that represent an advance on an existing patent. PI would represent a lower standard of inventiveness that is adopted from American biotechnology patent disputes, and so protect sub-patentable trade secrets. The other, higher threshold from the existing English patent law would remain as the patent standard. If a PI were granted to a patent owner, then s/he could practise price discrimination, but if granted to a rival, then competition could result. Either outcome could protect trade secrets, yet mitigate the harmful effects of legal protection. If these proposals were adopted, more information could be produced as well as utilised. Moreover, the growth of the biotechnology and computer software industries in New Zealand could be furthered.
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    Indigenous intellectual and cultural property rights
    (2008-01-30T22:17:12Z) Lilley, Spencer C
    1999 heralds the beginning of the United Nations Decade for Indigenous Peoples. A number of issues will be highlighted throughout the decade and new opportunities will emerge. In recent years both Australia and New Zealand have witnessed a rebirth of interest in indigenous issues. One of the more complex issues that has emerged has been that of cultural and intellectual property rights. Assertion of property rights over traditional forms of knowledge will become one of the leading challenges for indigenous peoples during this decade. Indigenous intellectual and cultural property rights do not fit neatly into western legal frameworks and this therefore leaves the knowledge of indigenous peoples vulnerable to exploitation. Indigenous peoples are establishing their own networks and working through international organisations such as the United Nations Working Group on Indigenous Populations to identify sectors where cultural and/or intellectual property rights are being compromised. Libraries and information centres store and provide access to a variety of resources that fall into the category of intellectual and cultural property and this will subject our sector to intense scrutiny. This paper will identify what constitutes cultural and intellectual property rights, how it conflicts with western law, and what the implications for libraries and information centres are.