Structure and Modes of Participation

The BIOS initiative will be developed within CAMBIA’s framework but will increasingly be associated with an autonomous non-profit identity as this becomes practical. BIOS will extend to a worldwide network of participants, currently constrained, unserved or marginalized by the existing intellectual property culture, using BIOS as a mechanism for collectively inventing, and securing biological technology into a publicly accessible commons, protected from private appropriation but available to all – public and private - and as a venue for collaboration, de novo innovation and the free exchange of information.

Contributors will assign, provide or license their technologies or knowledge to a protected commons created by BIOS or to a BIOS-approved license or contract mechanism, which may include patent, trademark, copyright, contracts, materials transfer agreements or other binding agreements.

Licensees will acquire cost-free access to any BIOS technologies, based on the open access license which commits the licensee a) to grant back to BIOS rights to any improvements made, b) to collectively defend the protected commons of BIOS technologies and c) to share regulatory and biosafety information with all licensees.

Subscribers will be licensees who contribute a non-compulsory annual fee to BIOS, proportional to their capabilities. BIOS’s technologies will be grouped in technology-specific portfolios and subscribers will specify the portfolios to which they wish to subscribe. Subscribers will receive related support services and direct access to a portfolio manager who is a leading expert in the specific technology and its intellectual property landscape. They will be notified of advances and improvements in the field, whether in the form of know-how or more formal intellectual property, have facilitated direct access to others in the field, have the ability to post problems for solving on a web-based incentive structures such as the InnoCentive network, and more.

Collaborators will be partner institutions providing research or services related to BIOS-focused aspects of IP systems analysis, ethics, theory, and practice. Collaborators should include many international institutions who face common constraints of tool access and use and IP policy.

Sponsors will contribute financially or in-kind to support BIOS and will collectively assert political and moral endorsement to its mission and its community of innovators. Sponsors may include philanthropic donors, national governments and agencies, and private and public benefactors.

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