The rights of the owner of intellectual property are protected over the common interests of the world and its population.  Although patents are often shared in some industries where various patented technologies are used to create a product, many believe that protection of patents in the chemical and pharmaceutical industries are paramount to continued research investments.  However, according to the Biotechnology Law Report  (Report 543, Number 6) published in December of 2008, “The International Expert Group on Biotechnology, Innovation and Intellectual Property released a report, 7 years in the writing, concluding that the present intellectual property system is interfering with innovation, especially in biotechnology, medicine, and the life sciences.”  This is not the only evidence that intellectual property protection has had negative consequences.  Because of the industry's focus is on creating profitable products for developing countries, namely the United States, developing countries’ needs remained neglected with dire consequences.  Unable to obtain and afford the cost of the treatments, people throughout the world continue to die of common illnesses (e.g. lower respiratory illness and diarrhea) and diseases (e.g. measles and malaria) otherwise controlled in the developed world by vaccines and other drugs.   Although in developing countries, AIDS has become a treatable, less often fatal disease, it remains the number one killer in developing countries according to the University of California's "Atlas of Global Inequality"  Consequently countries like India and Thailand  permit development of generic drugs copying those that the people need but cannot afford.  They also market those drugs to other developing countries.  There are others that seek to circumvent intellectual property laws for the betterment of the world's least privileged inhabitants, for example, the Institute for OneWorld Health.   Founded in 2000 according to founder Victoria G. Hale, the plan was to “find promising potential candidate medicines in areas of great unmet medical need; partner with the right experts and institutions to take these medicines through development, clinical trials, and regulatory approval; and finally, deliver safe, effective, and affordable medicines to the patients who need them.”  With generous monetary donations from organizations such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and collaborations with such institutions as the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and the University of California Santa Barbara (which donated a patent) and executives and scientists in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries; the IOWH continues to be successful in it’s quest to provide assistance the world’s most vulnerable.

There are other intellectual property issues including those affecting medical procedures that have caused the consumer distress.  For example, according to Professor Joseph Stiglitz of Columbia University, as scientists worked on the genome project, the biopharmaceutical company Myriad Genetics quickly patented the gene indicating the propensity for developing breast cancer; consequently, the cost of testing for this vulnerability is high (five times the original estimation).  Another tragic example of the negative effects of intellectual property on people are the thousands Indian farmer suicides because of failed crops in 2006.  Farmers grew and planted their own seeds until the government and international aid donors encouraged them to buy hybrid seeds produced by Monsanto, an agricultural company based in St. Louis, Missouri.   These hybrid seeds presented more than one problem for these farmers. The most important being that the seeds are patented so that the farmers could no longer gather them for the next year's crop mandating that they buy new seeds every year and pay royalties to the company.   In 1991 Australian geneticist Richard Jefferson established CAMBIA, "a non-profit research institute whose mission is to make often proprietary technology more widely available."  He stated, “The real issue is the contribution that wise use of biotechnology can make to global health and nutrition– if we free up access to the tools for the people who really need them.”  Intellectual property rights protect the owner, but at what cost?