Re: [DIYbio] Counter Culture Labs + BioCurious do iGEM: Real Vegan Cheese!

On-topic; Hey Patrik, really exciting to see this up! I'll try and rub
some euros together to throw your way. :)

First up, disclosure; as you probably know, I'm a mentor and design
consultant to Synbio Axlr8r teams, including Muufri. I offered them some
assistance on their first designs, and may continue offering help.
However, I'm not being paid (yet, at any rate), so it's not very
intensive assistance and I have no monetary bias, just social!

I've been badgering all the teams here in Cork to stay open and to
resist the lure of old-guard patent-heavy business, the kind of nonsense
that's clouded and delayed biotechnology for decades already. Time will
tell how my efforts pan out, but the Muufri guys are here more for a
mission (panveganism) than for personal gain, and they tell me they
aren't planning to patent their outputs. So, that's pretty awesome.

OTOH, you guys are planning to patent, which confuses me:
https://wiki.realvegancheese.org/index.php/Real_Vegan_Cheese

"We plan to patent and abandon to keep this technology free for everyone"

..it's cool that you want to abandon it, but isn't that what prior art
is for, instead? And, by registering a patent in the first place, you're
creating a disincentive to those who don't *know* that you've abandoned
the patent.

Worse, if the patent is held by a legal entity or person who later goes
bankrupt or into liquidation, the patents may be forcibly sold to
someone who'll quite happily use them to destroy others' livelihoods and
innovations.

There *is* scope for using patents in an open-source way, by using
licenses like the DPL that establish an irrevocable license for use and
re-use, but it would be my view that the stultifying impact of even
registering patents, and the absence of a "patent metadata" search
function for people to know that it's DPL licensed, still makes it a net
lose versus simply registering public prior art.

Speaking of which, the Muufri guys have been pretty public about their
intention to make yeast-produced synbio milk, so it's not even clear
that the non-obvious parts of the project are patentable, anymore. Much
better to continue spamming all the good ideas onto highly trafficked
mailing lists to stymie AppleSoftOogle-style "Embrace Extend
Extinguish", and carry on innovating.

Anyway, that's my 2c. I'll carry on being everyone's underfunded Jimminy
Cricket as unobtrusively as I can, having shared that.

On 01/07/14 20:33, Patrik D'haeseleer wrote:
> Hi all!
>
> Come check out the IndieGogo campaign we just started to to fund the
> Counter Culture Labs / BioCurious DIYbio team for iGEM:
>
> https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/real-vegan-cheese
>
> The goal of the project is to engineer the four major cheese proteins
> (caseins) into yeast, express and purify them, combine with water and fats
> to form micelles, and then make cheese! No more odd nut cheese substitutes!
> *Real* cheese, made from real cheese proteins, made in real baker's yeast!
>
> We've got a $75 "Biohacker Special" just for this crowd: all the plasmids
> and detailed instructions for how to make your own cheese-producing yeast
> strain.
>
> For all you hardcore DIYbio fans, check out the tons of information we've
> already collected on our wiki:
>
> https://wiki.realvegancheese.org/index.php/Molecular_biology
>
> Please help us spread the word! If you can't afford to contribute, go for
> the $1 perk to get our updates and talk about us on your social intertubes.
> There's tons of other cool rewards as well: from the obligatory T-shirt, to
> some unique 3D printed jewelry (oops - still need to add that one!), to
> brainstorming sessions with your favorite mad scientists.
>
> Or if you know someone willing to spend $10 million to shut us down - well,
> there's an option for that too! :-)
>
> Patrik
>

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