Yes, the activity does involve the creation and acquisition of physical and intellectual assets.
If yes, explain how ownership and property protection issues will be addressed.
The participants in this project believe in the principle of open access to data, and support the increased mobilisation of policy-relevant environmental information to support the conservation and sustainable use of the world's living resources.
The participants contributing information content to the project (UIA, WCMC and DA) are not-for-profit organisations. They are committed to enabling free exchange of information, only charging for the staff time and other expenses necessary for editing and managing the data, performing services specifically requested, developing the services and products, and maintaining the currency of the information. Their concerns over intellectual property matters do not arise from an inherent commercial, or for-profit, bias. They may, however, need to reflect such concerns of others that provide them with information or commercialise their information.
Information held in the partners’ databases is not "original" (in the sense that they can unconditionally claim ownership). It may be available in a wide variety of forms, some of it in the public domain, much of it as "grey literature". The participants in this project add value to the data by standardisation of presentation, quality control, regular updates, and especially by integration of the data into a broader navigable framework. In this sense they do not so much own the data elements as the hypertext structures linking those elements. Where material is incorporated into this project from external sources other than those for which the partners have existing free-use arrangements, data ownership or custodianship has been, or will be, identified.
Discussions have been held, and will continue to be held, at stages of the project where any issues of concern or potential conflict arise for any of the partners. In particular, clarification has been sought (and duly recorded) at an early stage concerning any residual copyright or intellectual property rights matters which could be relevant to the eventual production and dissemination of the product/service.