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The Nagoya Protocol And Synthetic Biology Research: A Look At The Potential Impacts, Margo A. Bagley, Arti K. Rai
The Nagoya Protocol And Synthetic Biology Research: A Look At The Potential Impacts, Margo A. Bagley, Arti K. Rai
Faculty Scholarship
This report, prepared for the Synthetic Biology Project at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, analyzes the 2010 Nagoya Protocol to the Convention on Biological Diversity and how it may affect U.S. researchers working in the field of synthetic biology. The objective of the Protocol is to provide a transparent framework for the acquisition and sharing of genetic resources on fair and equitable terms that facilitate the conservation of biological diversity and associated traditional knowledge. The report finds significant uncertainty surrounding the temporal scope of the Agreement as well as the types of genetic material that will be covered …
Unstandard Standardization: The Case Of Biology, Arti K. Rai
Unstandard Standardization: The Case Of Biology, Arti K. Rai
Faculty Scholarship
How applicable are the approaches adopted by information and communication technology standards-setting organizations to biological standards? Most engineering-based industries construct products from standard, well understood components. By contrast, despite the early attachment of the moniker “genetic engineering” to biotechnology, standardization in the biological sciences has been relatively rare.
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 …