Team:Paris Bettencourt/Patenting

iGEM and Patenting

Started based on the idea of open science, iGEM values the sharing of knowledge through the sharing of research data, lab notebook and constructed part. That being said, participating in iGEM means signing a contract to give up the possibility of patenting anything coming directly out of iGEM competition. However, in the past, we have seen commercial products and patenting coming out of ideas started in iGEM, although different methods and biological materials.

Why are we talking about patenting?

Since we are not supposed to patent anything coming out of this current stage of the project, why are we talking about patenting here? There are mainly two reasons.

First of all, ever since its establishment, biotechnology keeps posting questions to current patenting system. Just last year, we saw the federal court case of patentability of biological constructs. As synthetic biologists, we are curious about both the system and the underlined ethical discussion and wish to learn more about them using this iGEM project as a gateway.

Second, in the process, as a team, we have talked about and thought about continuing the project with more advanced methods and different bacterial strains and turning it into a commercial product. With this discussion, came the question of legal status. The research on patenting keeps the entrepreneur motivation open.

Part: BBa

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Part: BBa

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