Team:Manchester/ManagementPart2

In an attempt to minimise the negative impact the commercialisation of our project would have on the economies of developing countries largely dependent on the palm oil industry, our ideas and constructs could be patented. Patenting a product derived through synthetic biology is not a new concept, in fact companies such as Givaudan have already patented microbial routes to valuable commodities such as vanillin, for example^[1]

Cons of patenting:

• It could lead to the privatisation of synthetic life forms^[2], as well as furthering the privatisation of products and processes found within nature^[3]


• Patenting could hinder progress in research and development, as the legislature around the patent may be very restrictive


• Following on from above, patents can be very broad in scope. Some people feel that genomic patents should only be issued if the standard criteria of patents are clearly apparent: patents must demonstrate novelty, usefulness and non-obviousness. This would potentially alleviate some of the restriction suggested above^[2]

Pros of patenting:

• Patenting leads to a protection of knowledge, which encourages researchers to publish and distribute their findings openly


• The CINVESTAV-IPN-UNAM iGEM team 2012 alluded to the fact that licences could be written into a patent^[4], which would still protect the inventor’s work but would also make the technology accessible to others