Frequently Asked Questions - BioForge

What is BioForge?

BioForge is a prototype for an online community of researchers who are interested in working together under open source-based principles.  BioForge can be developed as a dynamic 'protected commons' in which it will be possible to initiate, improve and implement projects of enabling technology for biological innovations of all kinds. 

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What is a 'protected commons' and how does it differ from the public domain?

BioForge is intended to provide the scientific community with a protected commons where discussion and mutual improvement of inventions can occur safely. When an idea is publicly disclosed outside the context of a timely patent application, it enters the public domain. It would be wrong to think, however, that it is then safe from being misappropriated.

Scientists are often concerned about placing information and data in the public domain because it can be analyzed and improved by those with more resources, and those improvements can be patented, excluding others from using them during the term of the patent. For an interesting exposure of the extent to which this happens, see the Science Policy Forum on patenting the sequences in the human genome.

Usually, any discussion or public disclosure of an invention before the patent application is lodged disqualifies the invention in a period of time for patenting, because the patent application itself should be the public disclosure that the patent system requires. A protected commons provides a secure platform where discussion about an invention or improvement can be done without it invalidating future patent applications.

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Why develop BioForge?

When scientists are concerned about placing information and data in the public domain, it is often because it can be analyzed and improved by those with more resources, and those improvements can be patented, excluding others from using them during the term of the patent.

To foster innovation that can be improved and used, the BioForge aims to build a protected commons in which you may share your ideas and data so that you and others can continue to build on them and improve them, but no user appropriates them and prevents other members of the BioForge community from building on them.

By their agreement to a contract to protect the commons for use by all who agree, the BioForge community sets up a way for any member to create new intellectual property within a protected commons, in which information may still be patentable and can certainly be used for making profitable products, but should be available to other creative members of the community to improve. Thus, users may patent improvements that they invent, but must agree not to enforce those patents against other members of the BioForge community.

BioForge will be most successful in catalysing a large community of innovators to produce high quality and relevant biological technologies for the empowerment of diverse problem-solvers in the developed and developing world. The software platform we are developing and the contributions of IP practitioners are helping to ensure that we can secure these technologies in a new, protected, universally-accessible commons.

As sourceforge.net has done for the open source software community, BioForge is intended to grow into a cyberspace meeting place for biotechnology scientists and those who can apply science. We want it to be a place to combine vigorous but positive debate, peer co-development concepts, curated and stewarded contributions, and public-good binding norms to forge unique collaborations and distributive problem-solving relevant to those unserved by current innovation practice. This will be a dynamic exercise, changing and morphing as it gains experience.

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Why would people want to share their research?

In the past, people often shared their research. The history of sharing ideas, experimental data and genetic resources such as seeds is millennia-long in agriculture.

However, the current environment of protecting patent rights induces a fear of sharing. BioForge is intended to alleviates this fear by providing a protected commons, which uses rather than loses patent rights, for sharing research and ideas.

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How does BioForge relate to open source technology?

Open source technology has been widely applicable to software development, in which the source code for computer programs is made available to modify, so that the software can rapidly evolve and improve.  The essence of the open source concept is that people don't just provide solutions; they provide an understanding of how the solution was developed and a way that the solution can be modified to suit other people's needs, and used to develop products. The concept of open source can be applied to anything that requires a meeting of innovative minds. BiOS-compliant agreements were created to extend the concept from copyright law to patent law and genetic resources law.

To collaborate with other scientific researchers usually involves expensive travel and attendance at costly conferences. Unfortunately, thousands of creative people, especially in disadvantaged regions of the world, do not have the resources to work like this. We hope that the virtual community www.BioForge.net will make it possible for the inventive minds of people the world over to interconnect, allowing their innovative ideas to adapt these biotechnologies so they can work in their local area.

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How will the BioForge community grow?

The real power of BioForge is to enable innovation, rather than to impose restrictions. We hope that it will be a place where the community, through the Forum and other tools yet to be developed, directs the incentive to create new products.  By using BioForge, researchers do not need to risk operating outside of license regulations, because agreeing to the terms of the BiOS (Biological Open Source) Licenses gives them access to the tools they need. We hope that this will foster a re-creation of the connection that should exist between publicly funded research and applied implementation of that research for the fostering of small and medium enterprises and public good.

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What are the first projects in BioForge?

The first BioForge projects focus on key portfolios of enabling technology that are presenting real bottlenecks to innovation by and for the developing world, and indeed for the structural reform of enterprise in OECD countries, especially in agriculture.  The first project that led to the BioForge in a publication was Plant Molecular Enabling Technology, i.e. critical tools for plant transformation. One of these is GUSPlus, a GUS gene that improves upon the capabilities of the initial gusA gene, which was released to the world under terms broadly similar to those envisioned for BiOS and BioForge. Another example is the TransBacter  technology, developed to bypass critical restrictions on gene transfer by Agrobacterium. Within BioForge, there are also related projects on gene activation and apomixis.

There is also an open source license available to anyone for Genetic Resource Indexing Technology, concerned with genetic resource conservation, identification and use. The 'pump-priming' technology for this portfolio is CAMBIA's Diversity Arrays Technology (DArT), which is already being used commercially to enhance molecular breeding activities in wheat, barley, apple, forages, rice, cattle and sheep.  More projects are being added to the BioForge over time. Dependent on suitable funding, 'flagship' programs can be developed targeting critical future technology opportunities that can have catalytic effects on democratic innovation, including technologies affecting health and medical interventions. Some examples we hope to see developed are homologous recombination technologies, and gene down-regulation.

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Who will be able to access the technologies?

Anyone can access the technologies subject to BiOS Licenses.

If your institution has executed a BiOS license, find out about obtaining a password to access the relevant protected commons (secure project space) within the BioForge.

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How can I get a particular piece of technology that is not currently available under a BiOS license?

In the BiOS Initiative proposal funded by the Rockefeller Foundation in 2004-2007, we envisioned that stimulation and sponsorship of targeted innovation could occur through commissioned research and participation in challenge or bounty systems such as InnoCentive, Inc. (www.innocentive.com). However, such targeted incentives cannot neglect the intellectual property and licensing considerations that often prevent great ideas from actually leading to delivery.

You can initiate challenges by proposing a targeted project for the BioForge (www.bioforge.net) and how it could be seeded with technology that would benefit by collaborative, distributive development. Some technologies we believe are of interest include core technologies that all players, large and small, need for the next generation of innovation, such as bioindicators (sentinel species), homologous recombination, apomixis, new pharmaceutical screening or production systems, and vaccine development and delivery.
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