Law Commons^™

Copyright For Engineered Dna: An Idea Whose Time Has Come, Christopher M. Holman

Faculty Works

The rapidly emerging field of synthetic biology has tremendous potential to address some of the most compelling challenges facing our planet, by providing clean renewable energy, nutritionally-enhanced and environmentally friendly agricultural products, and revolutionary new life-saving cures. However, leaders in the synthetic biology movement have voiced concern that biotechnology's current patent-centric approach to intellectual property is in many ways ill-suited to meet the challenge of synthetic biology, threatening to impede follow-on innovation and open access technology. For years, copyright and patent protection for computer software have existed side-by-side, the two forms of intellectual property complementing one another. Numerous academic commentators …