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GUS is widely credited for enabling many breakthroughs in plant biotech, including the development of one of Monsanto’s first and most profitable agricultural products, Roundup Ready soybeans. Mr. Jefferson first provided GUS and all the know-how to use it for free to hundreds of labs around the world.
When he secured his patents, he charged only what people could afford: Monsanto, he says, paid a substantial amount; academics and companies in the developing world, including those who wanted to use his work for commercial purposes, received it free of charge.
The software to run this blog is open source freeware: Wordpress. Great advances have been made possible by the adoption of open source software.
In, The Public Domain, Lawrence Lessig examines the un-balance created over the last few decades in laws between the public good and the private rewards. He founded the Creative Commons a way for intellectual property owners to share explicitly share their rights so others may build upon them for the benefit of society.
Patent law exists to benefit society. The rights granted to the private owners was meant to benefit society by providing a reward for those innovating. And that is a needed. However many seem to have forgotten the fundamental principle is societal benefits with individual profits being the method to benefit society.
Movements like open source are partially born out of frustration with the unbalanced state we have reached. We need to improve this area by re-balancing the system of rights. Open source is a way for people to make sure what they work on goes to benefit society and is not locked away. It is one good way to move in the right direction but it is not the only solution.
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September 21st, 2006 at 7:30 pm
[...] by curiouscat Tags: Science, Research, Higher Education, Open Access Permalink to: Open Access Legislation if (minute > 20){ } else { } [...]