Paul Rincon, Plant biotech goes open-source, BBC News, February 10, 2005. Excerpt: 'A team of scientists has developed an "open-source" alternative to one of the most effective - but patent-protected - ways of genetically modifying plants....But Agrobacterium has hundreds of patents issued on it, with biotech giants Monsanto and Syngenta amongst the significant rights holders. The microbe, which causes plant tumours in the wild, is used widely in research. But patent rights are rarely enforced until scientists decide to commercialise the fruits of their work. "If you care one hoot about delivering it to the public, it's a big problem," said co-author of the new study [in Nature] Dr Richard Jefferson of research institute Cambia in Canberra, Australia. "When there are dozens or hundreds of patents involved, negotiations can be labyrinthine - and all it takes is one denied right to stop the whole process."...The open-source method is not bound by the patent system. So scientists are free to use the technique without commercial restrictions, but must share any improvements they make to this scientific "toolkit". "It isn't about making it cost-free or busting patents. It's about harnessing the latent creativity of a very large number of people who are out of the loop right now," said Dr Jefferson, a descendent of Thomas Jefferson, the third president of the US and also the country's first patent commissioner. "I see this as unfinished family business," he told the BBC News website....The team behind the Nature paper has also launched a collaborative research platform on the internet called BioForge, which will allow scientists to develop new technology within a protected "commons".'
Posted by
Peter Suber at 2/11/2005 09:55:00 AM.
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
