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Synthetic biology and biomedical research raise many complex legal, ethical, and pragmatic issues related to how intellectual property law and practice influence innovation, impact technology, and ultimately alter society. After a review of relevant literature and our own experiences, we conclude that the current intellectual property-centric approach to innovation management has become destructive of its intentions, hampering innovation and systematically limiting access.

Given the rapid emergence of uniquely challenging new fields like synthetic biology that bear enormously on the public good, our innovation management process urgently demands fundamental renegotiation. Within our legal framework, there should at minimum be several new infringement exemptions, more careful distinctions between the patentability of completely novel and naturally derived “innovations,” and stronger limitations on the ability of patent-holders to exclude others from exploiting a technology when they are not adequately developing the technology themselves, among other reforms, and the entire intellectual property regime should eventually be replaced with a reward system. Further, independent organizations like Openwetware and the Biobrick Foundation can do more to improve their impact on synthetic biology while serving as a laboratory of innovation for testing new methods of promoting innovation that can be generalized to other fields.

To access our detailed findings, read our full paper here.