[Noisebridge-discuss] There is no way to protect/gpl plasmids, proteins, cells in synthetic biology help!

Asheesh Laroia noisebridge at asheesh.org
Thu Feb 26 21:02:05 UTC 2009


On Thu, 26 Feb 2009, William Heath wrote:

> Hi All,
> I have a very serious problem.  There is no accepted way to protect/gpl
> plasmids, proteins, cells in synthetic biology from being
> copyrighted/patented by 3rd parties! I can't believe this is true. Even
> supposedly opensource biobricks are not even protected. I tried to find
> Richard Stallmans email but couldn't find it. The result of this issue
> prevent ready exchange of synthetic biology materials because everyone is
> afraid someone will steal their plasmids and make it illegal for them to use
> it without paying them. Is that not crazy?! Please help me to figure out a
> way to deal with this. I would have sent this to the diy bio list but they
> are resisting this in my opinion. They are all on the patent/copyright
> bandwagon unfortunately. They can't even answer the basic question of what
> plasmids, dna, cells are not copyrighted/patented.

(Note: I work for Creative Commons.)

You may want to ask a question to the Science Commons team. See 
http://sciencecommons.org/ for more information on the project, and 
http://sciencecommons.org/contact/ for a contact email address.

I believe that the SC team is more likely to know how to help you than 
RMS.

Your email comes off as stressed and frantic; try to calm down and pose a 
specific question when you do email them. Be sure to provide background in 
case they aren't very familiar with the DIY Bio movement. (Feel free to 
CC: me if you like; use my work address, asheesh at creativecommons.org.)

-- Asheesh.

-- 
He hath eaten me out of house and home.
 		-- William Shakespeare, "Henry IV"



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