Team:Clemson/HumanPractices

Open Source?

Intellectual property involves, according to the World Intellectual Property Association, “creations of the mind.” In the field of biological research, these creations can include a novel sequencing technique, a new assay, or a complex technical drawing. Scientists can patent their products, providing legal protection that is designed to encourage further innovation and advances in research. To receive a patent, the product must comply with certain standards of practicality, novelty, invention, and patentability. In other words, the invention must significantly expand upon prior knowledge in a way that could not be discovered by an individual of average technical knowledge in that field.1 The International Genetically Engineered Machine (iGEM) Foundation, which according to the official iGEM website seeks “the development of open community and collaboration” through a scientific research competition, poses interesting challenges in the field of intellectual property. Student researchers utilize parts from a standard registry to develop complex synthetic biology projects; in turn, those iGEM teams are expected to submit their newly synthesized parts to the standard registry, increasing the breadth and depth of parts available for other teams to use.2 After contributing to the standard registry, many teams choose to patent certain aspects of their final projects that have been developed using BioBricks. Several teams, including Stanford-Brown’s 2012 and the University of Oxford’s 2014 iGEM team, have developed guides for iGEM teams explaining the patent process and sharing current discussions about the struggle to balance intellectual property that belongs in the public domain and property that belongs to a certain individual or team.3,4 Our in-progress project intends to explore the ethicality of patenting inventions produced using BioBricks and other materials from public domain. Through interviews, surveys, and philosophic and scientific research, we seek to answer the question “Even if iGEM teams are able to patent their projects under current intellectual property law, should they?” Through this examination, the Clemson iGEM team hopes to contribute to the ongoing conversation about the relationship between patents and open source materials. As this project is currently ongoing, we do not yet have any conclusions available; however, we will continue to update this page as information and research becomes available.

Works Referenced:
1. http://www.wipo.int/edocs/pubdocs/en/intproperty/450/wipo_pub_450.pdf
2. https://igem.org/About
3. https://static.igem.org/mediawiki/2012/7/73/PatentGuide.pdf
4. https://static.igem.org/mediawiki/2014/8/86/IP_REPORTWEBVER.pdf