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Synthetic Biology: Caught Between Property Rights, The Public Domain, And The Commons, Arti K. Rai, James Boyle
Synthetic Biology: Caught Between Property Rights, The Public Domain, And The Commons, Arti K. Rai, James Boyle
Faculty Scholarship
Synthetic biologists aim to make biology a true engineering discipline. In the same way that electrical engineers rely on standard capacitors and resistors, or computer programmers rely on modular blocks of code, synthetic biologists wish to create an array of modular biological parts that can be readily synthesized and mixed together in different combinations. Synthetic biology has already produced important results, including more accurate AIDS tests and the possibility of unlimited supplies of previously scarce drugs for malaria. Proponents hope to use synthetic organisms to produce not only medically relevant chemicals but also a large variety of industrial materials, including …
Synthetic Biology: The Intellectual Property Puzzle, Arti K. Rai, Sapna Kumar
Synthetic Biology: The Intellectual Property Puzzle, Arti K. Rai, Sapna Kumar
Faculty Scholarship
Synthetic biology, which operates at the intersection of biotechnology and information technology, has the potential to raise, in a particularly acute manner, the intellectual property problems that exist in both fields. A preliminary patent landscape reveals problematic foundational patents that could, if licensed and enforced inappropriately, impede the potential of the technology. The landscape also reveals a proliferation of patents on basic synthetic biology "parts" that could create transaction cost heavy patent thickets. Both foundational patents and patent thickets are likely to be particularly problematic to the extent they read on standards that synthetic biologists would like to establish. Synthetic …