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Ownership and sharing in synthetic biology: A ‘diverse ecology’ of the open and the proprietary?

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Abstract

Synthetic biology is in the process of inventing itself and its ownership regimes. There are currently two dominant approaches to ownership and sharing in the field. The work of the J. Craig Venter Institute is grounded in molecular biology and in gene patenting. Parts-based approaches to synthetic biology, in contrast, are inspired by engineering, open source software and distributed innovation, and they are building new communities to help further this agenda. Despite these differences, the two approaches make very similar use of informational and computational metaphors. They both also have a place in a vision for the future of synthetic biology as a ‘diverse ecology’ of the open and the proprietary. It remains to be seen whether such a diverse ecology will be sustainable, whether synthetic biology will go down the patenting route taken by previous biotechnologies or whether different forms of ownership and sharing will emerge. Which path is taken will depend on the success of synthetic biology in achieving both its technical objectives and its social innovations.

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Notes

  1. I explore this issue in Calvert (forthcoming).

  2. See, for example, Conley and Makowski (2003) and Demaine and Fellmeth (2002).

  3. USPTO Applications Nos. 08/476,102 and 08/545,528.

  4. In fact, this decision was overruled in July 2011 in the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC). Interestingly, the idea that DNA is chemical (rather than informational) and that it can be reduced to its chemical nature was assumed by one of the CAFC judges, who argued that merely detaching a segment of DNA from its natural context gives it a different chemical identity. The American Civil Liberties Union will be pursuing Myriad in the Supreme Court (Allsup, 2011).

  5. Other important method applications that I do not have space to discuss here are Venter et al (2007) ‘Synthetic genomes’ (application number 11/635,355, filed in 2006), and Gibson et al (2009) ‘Assembly of large nucleic acids’ (application number 12/247,126, filed in 2008).

  6. In fact, they did not have to use such a ghost cell in their work; instead they manipulated the methylation patterns and restriction systems of the host and donor DNA (Gibson et al, 2010).

  7. See www.syntheticbiology.org/

  8. See http://partsregistry.org/

  9. http://biobricks.org/bpa/users/agreement/(emphasis added)

  10. See http://igem.org/About

  11. One of the requirements for a Gold Medal in the 2010 iGEM was to ‘Characterize or improve an existing BioBrick Part or Device and enter this information back on the Registry’ (http://2010.igem.org/Judging/Judging_Criteria).

  12. See http://diybio.org/

  13. http://biobricks.org/

  14. As Raymond (2000) points out, ‘Linux is subversive’ (p.2).

  15. http://biobricks.org/bpa/users/agreement/

  16. There are other suggestions about how to organize IP around BioBricks aside from the BioBrick Public Agreement (see Rai and Boyle, 2007), such as Henkel and Maurer's (2009) suggestion of embedded Linux, where parts are shared after being kept private for 6 months (again, a direct borrowing from the software world).

  17. Those who contributed parts to the Registry could, however, request an attribution from users for future use of their part (http://biobricks.org/bpa/users/agreement/).

  18. http://biobricks.org/bpa/faq/#1

  19. For example, companies such as Arymis Technologies and LS9 are filing patents, and parts registries are being developed by organisations such as the Joint Bioenergy Institute (www.jbei.org/fuels-synthesis/resources.shtml), and the Centre for Synthetic Biology and Innovation at Imperial College (www3.imperial.ac.uk/syntheticbiology).

  20. Ginkgo Bioworks, a synthetic biology company, which decided not to pursue venture capital, is a notable exception.

  21. Decision of the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, Amgen v. Chugai Pharmaceutical Co., 927 F.2d 1200.

  22. Synthetic biologists are keenly aware of these difficulties and are in fact heavily quoted in the Kwok article.

  23. Similar points are also made by Walby (2001, p. 790) and Torrance (2010, p. 647).

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Acknowledgements

I am very grateful to all those who have commented on various iterations of this article at workshops in Amsterdam, Leeds, Singapore and London (CSynBI/BIOS). I would like to thank three anonymous referees and the editors of this special issue for their insightful comments. This work was carried out as part of the programme of the ESRC Innogen Centre, University of Edinburgh.

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    Jane Calvert

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Calvert, J. Ownership and sharing in synthetic biology: A ‘diverse ecology’ of the open and the proprietary?. BioSocieties 7, 169–187 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1057/biosoc.2012.3

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