Overview

Our policy & pratice forcus on 3 main goals

• 1.Introduce another application way of research; business

• 2. Introduce synbio to people who are at the far point from science related fields

• 3. Attracted people into our activity, iGEM competition

As for the first goal, we've done a research on Intellectual Property. Most iGEMers especially those who have participated in the track, Information Processing, tend to minimize the importance of Intellectual Property and Patents. We believe that a proper education in Intellectual Property will produce a positive effect on the researchers. Our job was a first step into introducing Intellectual Property and patents to the iGEMers so they can have better understanding of their work.
For the second and third goals we presented to public outside competition about Synbio. While working as communicators, we learned how others think about our field and how we can spread our activity.

Problem Solving

Motivation

We, UT-Tokyo encountered a unforeseen problem during processing our project: patents. Googling for it, we've noticed that we have little knowledge on Intellectual Property and Patents. Seen around the world, some teams in overseas have established their company on the basis of their iGEM project, but there's no teams like that in Japan. Why does this happen? Does the situation narrow potential of our projects? In addition, our survey shows knowledge about Intellectual Property and Patent have highly-demand than ever. On the other hand, students including us, don't know how to gain such information.

Therefore, we conducted interviews over a broad population. Experts, professors, researchers, students and other professionals were part of our research target. The results of our observations are presented in the following paragraphs, along with our conclusions regarding the topic.

Solution

From the researches and interviews above, we reached to the conclusion: in patenting, there is clear difference in pros and cons, even in opinions of people. The problem is not straightforward. We can't say patenting is always good, or bad, thus, we put summary of all the pros and cons at the bottom part of Problem Solving.

Intellectual Property and SynBio

What is Intellectual Property? Before the main topic, we let you know basic information.

• What is IP?

IP is protected in law by, for example, patents, copyright and trademarks, which enable people to earn recognition or financial benefit from what they invent or create. By striking the right balance between the interests of innovators and the wider public interest, the IP system aims to foster an environment in which creativity and innovation can flourish. [1]

• What is Patent?

A patent for an invention is the grant of a property right to the inventor. Patents are granted for new, useful and non-obvious inventions for a period of 20 years from the filing date of a patent application, and provide the right to exclude others from exploiting the invention during that period. [2]

• SynBio and Patents

Patenting FAQ

Q. How can I do to gain knowledge on academic patenting?
A. Actual experience on it could be an effective way of patent learning. However, if you don't have such a chance, you can substitute it with researching previous case.

Q. How much do I need for patenting?
A. In Japan, about 400,000yen is required. It varies from country to country

Q. Who should I consult if I want to file patent?
A. Patent attorney or company which are strong in researching would help you.

Q. In which country should I apply for patent?
A. It depends on what kind of study you do. Since Patent is not applicable to the whole world, you have to select country to apply. The need is in where the field of research thrive.




Things you MUST NOT do

• talk to someone in cafeteria

• spread the information thorough SNS

• publish the idea including at academic meeting or in papers

• winning grants

• file patent with incomplete study

Some countries have time period for patenting after your disclosure (ex, 1 year in the U.S.)

See more [3]




Things you SHOULD do for patenting

• search for previous case of patent

• present your ideas or studies in BROAD outline with no details

• gain knowledge on how to write application form of patening (the result could be changed even at the point of the written style)

Interview

We asked two persons from both sides, educator and educated. In firms, all scientists are required to learn IP, hence firstly, we went interview to a person in the field and secondly, scientists not directly related to patent.

• Hiroyuki Takahashi, from a science company, Leave A Nest corp.

Q1. What do you do?
　　 I do marketing of reagent, research of specific fields, and mediation between scientists and firms. In addition, I sometimes help scientists with establishing new project together and sometimes look for scientists instead of huge firms. I do many things for else. Most of my jobs are for scientists and firms. My work is like a bridge. I connect people to people, projects to people, data to people and government subvention to scientists. We, our company doesn't just throw our work. We always stand by our customers.

Q2. How do your company give education about IP on scientist?
Education of IP isn’t a must in every company. Member of Research and Development department might give some lectures, however, IP strategy requires real experiment in projects. From the reason, new comers rarely be placed there. In our company, we set a trainee to a scientist who needs that kind of knowledge.

Q3. We heard that most scientists do not have enough knowledge of patent when they are newly hired. How is it?
Those knowledge were not needed except for specific projects. So that story is true. I don’t know how other firms are but I guess they are nearly same.

Q4. Do you think putting knowledge on IP is needed for undergraduates or graduates? And why?
Having knowledge can’t be in vain. However, Intellectual Property is difficult to learn from only on the paper, so opportunity of operational experience is desirable. I recommend those who want to have the skill, to apply for internship. Reading book could support them too. It would help students to do favorable study along with IP when they want it. In other way, you can use website of Japan Patent Office. Just browsing IP documents on skills you were interested in, would do you good too.

Q5.Message to Students?
IP has both good and bad sides. It might widen your possibility but also narrows it too. Thinking how to face IP, and what merit you can gain do your business plan good in the future because it strongly relates to what do you want to do. Putting your iGEM project into consideration with it helps you to learn more on IP. Good Luck.




• Dr. Ellinger, a Ph.D of BioChemistry

Q1.What do you do?
I am an assistant professor at the University of Tokyo. I teach science and scientific writing to 1st and 2nd year students

Q2.Have you ever thought about Intellectual Property?
Yes, I have thought about patenting my work. Two of my previous projects were considered for patents (in the USA), however they were rejected.

Q3.and why(not)?
For those projects, my colleagues and I thought that we had created inventions that had commercial potential. Therefore we wanted to protect out ideas.

Q4.What do you think of the fact; Japanese university rarely give lectures to undergrads and graduates?
I think it is unfortunate that Japanese Universities (and American Universities too) rarely give lectures to undergrads and graduate students about intellectual property. Although having scientific publications is the main criterion for measuring a scientist’s success, I think that in the future, patenting and intellectual property will also be important. So it is necessary that we train students early so that they can learn to identify work that has potential to be intellectual property. Students also need to learn easy in their career how to protect their data properly so they can validate their claims when applying for patents.

Q5.Do you think the situation should be changed? and why?
Yes, see my answer to question 4.

Q6.We would like you to give us comments for young scientists?
Be creative and think outside of the box. The most successful scientists are the ones who are creative and willing to take risks!




• Generals

We also conveyed a survey about Intellectual Property and Patent on Synthetic Biology.
Body: 70 Target: all age, various backgrounds.

Q1. What is your academic background?


Q2.How familiar are you with the following terms?


Q3.Have you ever learnt Intellectual Property at your university ?


Q4. Do you think it is important to teach about IP to undergraduate students?


Q5. Should all technologies patent-able?


Q6. Synthetic Biology is a research field that deals with the modification of life with a purpose. For example, in 2010, some researchers managed to create a bacterium with completely synthetic DNA. Do you think that this kind of emerging technologies should be patentable?


Q7. Why/Why not?


YES(excerpt)

• it can be abused unless patented

• It encourages research.

• I believe patents have the power to protect original ideas and allow for those ideas to enter the mainstream.

• It'is a product derived from their hard work and knowledge, thus deserve protección.

• If it is not secured, somebody might use it for bad things.

• Patent helps protect the right of inventor(s) from being violated.

• There is no reason why denying patent filings.

NO(excerpt)

• Patents represent a barrier to the sharing of knowledge, which is socially produced. They tend to distort the responses of research centers, universities and industries towards social needs, since they encourage the development of profitable technologies instead of prioritizing human needs. This is clear, for example, when we look for the existing disparity among researches dealing with diseases affecting poor countries and those dealing with diseases affecting rich populations in the global north. Synthetic Biology should be open for all, avoiding big industrial groups to rely on their patents to avoid other social actors to develop researches in the field in an open source way. Far from encouraging developments in the field, patents lead to a logic of "the winner takes it all", especially when one consider the "building block" structure of Syntethic Bilogy.

• They have not invented anything, they are playing with life.

• Because the main reason for patenting are economical, so no one else can exploit the invention, and there are many inventions such as this one that are a great breakthrough in science and should be exploited by other people to see its capabilities and should no be used only for economical reasons.

• All discoveries should be shared to facilitate further researches.

• They took effort to make that happen. They deserve a reward.

• Knowledge with good purposes should be free.

NOT SURE(excerpt)

• I am not an expert on the subject, and I do not know the impact of a technology being patentable.

• Method itself should be patentable because it is their invention. But created bacterium should not be patentable.

Pros and Cons in fact

Pros

• Widen the potential of your study

• Enable to write thesis so that it convenient to patening

Cons

• Could be harm submitting thesis faster because preparing for patening takes a lot of time

• Could be harm patening improved technology

Public Participation

Our public participation was mainly about education. This year, we did two presentations and did 1 survey.

Techno-edge

Target	Children aged 5 – 17
Content	Done a presentation of our last year’s project. Made special lecture to little children about what is E.coli Introduced iGEM and our schedule through a year.
Result	through a various questions, we could renovate our flaws of presentation. Succeeded in attracting both children and their parents into the world of synthetic biology and activities in iGEM.

May Festival

We made another chance to introduce us and our project at our school festival, May Fest.

Target	All ages
Content	Introduced not only our project but also some other teams in Japan; NokoGem, Tokyo-Tech, Kyoto, Nagahama, KAIT_Japan. Carried a survey about how people thing on synthetic biology. -> Result
Result	Succeeded in understanding current situation that synbio is facing. (For more details, see the link above)