Team:Manchester/HP/Silver

Beyond the bench, the world educates us on ethics, sustainability, social justice, safety, security, environmental impact and intellectual property rights, information which further shapes the direction of our research.

Water Industry

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Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit. Libero fuga facilis vel consectetur quos sapiente deleniti eveniet dolores tempore eos deserunt officia quis ab? Excepturi vero tempore minus beatae voluptatem!Libero fuga facilis vel consectetur quos sapiente deleniti eveniet dolores tempore eos deserunt officia quis ab? Excepturi vero tempore minus beatae voluptatem! Libero fuga facilis vel consectetur quos sapiente deleniti eveniet dolores tempore eos deserunt officia quis ab?

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Libero fuga facilis vel consectetur quos sapiente deleniti eveniet dolores tempore eos deserunt officia quis ab? Excepturi vero tempore minus beatae voluptatem!Libero fuga facilis vel consectetur quos sapiente deleniti eveniet dolores tempore eos deserunt officia quis ab? Excepturi vero tempore minus beatae voluptatem:

1. Libero fuga facilis vel consectetur quos sapiente deleniti eveniet dolores tempore eos deserunt officia quis ab? Excepturi vero tempore minus beatae voluptatem!Libero fuga facilis vel consectetur quos sapiente deleniti eveniet dolores tempore eos deserunt officia quis ab? Excepturi vero tempore minus beatae voluptatem!

2. Libero fuga facilis vel consectetur quos sapiente deleniti eveniet dolores tempore eos deserunt officia quis ab? Excepturi vero tempore minus beatae voluptatem!Libero fuga facilis vel consectetur quos sapiente deleniti eveniet dolores tempore eos deserunt officia quis ab? Excepturi vero tempore minus beatae voluptatem!

3. Libero fuga facilis vel consectetur quos sapiente deleniti eveniet dolores tempore eos deserunt officia quis ab? Excepturi vero tempore minus beatae voluptatem!Libero fuga facilis vel consectetur quos sapiente deleniti eveniet dolores tempore eos deserunt officia quis ab? Excepturi vero tempore minus beatae voluptatem!

4. Libero fuga facilis vel consectetur quos sapiente deleniti eveniet dolores tempore eos deserunt officia quis ab? Excepturi vero tempore minus beatae voluptatem!Libero fuga facilis vel consectetur quos sapiente deleniti eveniet dolores tempore eos deserunt officia quis ab? Excepturi vero tempore minus beatae voluptatem!

5. Libero fuga facilis vel consectetur quos sapiente deleniti eveniet dolores tempore eos deserunt officia quis ab? Excepturi vero tempore minus beatae voluptatem!Libero fuga facilis vel consectetur quos sapiente deleniti eveniet dolores tempore eos deserunt officia quis ab? Excepturi vero tempore minus beatae voluptatem!

Libero fuga facilis vel consectetur quos sapiente deleniti eveniet dolores tempore eos deserunt officia quis ab? Excepturi vero tempore minus beatae voluptatem!Libero fuga facilis vel consectetur quos sapiente deleniti eveniet dolores tempore eos deserunt officia quis ab? Excepturi vero tempore minus beatae voluptatem! Libero fuga facilis vel consectetur quos sapiente deleniti eveniet dolores tempore eos deserunt officia quis ab?

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Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit. Libero fuga facilis vel consectetur quos sapiente deleniti eveniet dolores tempore eos deserunt officia quis ab? Excepturi vero tempore minus beatae voluptatem!Libero fuga facilis vel consectetur quos sapiente deleniti eveniet dolores tempore eos deserunt officia quis ab? Excepturi vero tempore minus beatae voluptatem! Libero fuga facilis vel consectetur quos sapiente deleniti eveniet dolores tempore eos deserunt officia quis ab? Excepturi vero tempore minus beatae voluptatem!Libero fuga facilis vel consectetur quos sapiente deleniti eveniet dolores tempore eos deserunt officia quis ab? Excepturi vero tempore minus beatae voluptatem! Libero fuga facilis vel consectetur quos sapiente deleniti eveniet dolores tempore eos deserunt officia quis ab? Excepturi vero tempore minus beatae voluptatem!Libero fuga facilis vel consectetur quos sapiente deleniti eveniet dolores tempore eos deserunt officia quis ab? Excepturi vero tempore minus beatae voluptatem! Libero fuga facilis vel consectetur quos sapiente deleniti eveniet dolores tempore eos deserunt officia quis ab? Excepturi vero tempore minus beatae voluptatem!Libero fuga facilis vel consectetur quos sapiente deleniti eveniet dolores tempore eos deserunt officia quis ab? Excepturi vero tempore minus beatae voluptatem! Libero fuga facilis vel consectetur quos sapiente deleniti eveniet dolores tempore eos deserunt officia quis ab? Excepturi vero tempore minus beatae voluptatem!Libero fuga facilis vel consectetur quos sapiente deleniti eveniet dolores tempore eos deserunt officia quis ab? Excepturi vero tempore minus beatae voluptatem! Libero fuga facilis vel consectetur quos sapiente deleniti eveniet dolores tempore eos deserunt officia quis ab? Excepturi vero tempore minus beatae voluptatem!

Intellectual Property

As the paper that we based our project on cited a granted patent, we wanted to explore intellectual property situation in more detail to determine how this may influence our project. As none of our team members have any experience in intellectual property rights, we consulted experts in the field to seek guidance and answers. We contacted Dr. Rick Watson from the University of Manchester Intellectual Property office and Dr. Linda Kahl from the BioBrick Foundation. Through e-mail exchanges and a phone call discussion, the case of intellectual property became much clearer which directly impacted the development of our business plan and consequently shaped our experimental ideas.

E-mail Exchange with Dr. Rick Watson - University of Manchester Intellectual Property (UMIP)

We wanted to know whether our project would be viable for a patent. To understand this, we reached out to Dr. Watson from the University of Manchester Intellectual Property (UMIP). Through e-mail, Dr. Watson gave a very thorough explanation that helped us to understand the patent situation of our project.

We were told that a granted patent is different than a patent application because if the patent has not yet been examined, we do not know for certain which of the claims are approved as written by the applicant, or which of them may be modified or refused as part of the examination process. In addition, we learned that holding a patent in a certain territory will give a monopoly not only over that territory but it also stops products created outside from being imported into those territories.

If we were to commercialize and patent our project, we learned that we will have to consider all previous patents and all previous scientific literature known as the ‘prior art’. This is because to be patentable, our invention would have to pass four basic tests:

1. Is it novel? Has our idea been thought of before, and put into the public domain by either us, or someone before us? - if our idea is not novel then it fails this test and we cannot patent it

2. Our project will have to have an ‘inventive step’ that is different from other previous patents - and not just an obvious thing to do for someone who has the average level of understanding of our subject area

3. Is it industrially relevant? Will our idea be commercially useful?

4. Is it excluded? Some types of invention are not patentable due to the ethics involved, including many biotechnology related ‘inventions. Also, one cannot simply patent a pure scientific discovery

In addition to checking whether our invention can be patented, we will also have to balance out the commerciality of our project. If we were to patent this project, would it only cover a very narrow scope of protection? If so, could competitors easily ‘get around’ our patent without infringing us by producing a similar system with slightly altered components? Would the invention ultimately have a good chance of making us or our company more income to cover the cost of developing the idea and protecting it? If not, there would be no point in spending time and money on the patent in the first place.

Read more about our story with Intellectual Property.

Phone Call with Dr. Linda Kahl - BioBricks Foundation 29/07/2017

We wanted to confirm our understanding on the Intellectual Property side of our project in the context of the iGEM competition and the use of BioBricks. We then reached out to Dr. Linda Kahl, Senior Counsel & Director of Ownership, Sharing and Innovation for the BioBrick Foundation.

From our call, we gained some confirmation regarding the Public Agreement and what it means for Users and Contributors. We learned that the User and Contributor agreement only protects users against the claims by the person who signs the contributor agreement and it would not protect users from any third party claims. This means that if a User submitted a patented part into the BioBrick registry and the patent owner does not sign the Contributor agreement, the User would be liable for a patent infringement lawsuit. We realize that this may possibly have had happened in the past with previous iGEM teams that are unaware of IP issues. However, Dr. Kahl explains that it costs at least 3 million dollars to pursue a patent infringement lawsuit. Therefore, it is highly unlikely for anyone to file a lawsuit against iGEM or the BioBricks Foundation unless there is 3 million dollars or more worth of damages.

We then briefly discussed the Intellectual Property rights in the context of our business plan. Dr. Kahl advised us to consider the patent landscape to see who else is working in our field of interest. We were also advised to carefully examine the claims of the issued patents and see whether parts of our project are covered by the patent.

Lastly, we talked about iGEM and learned that the reason why anything we disclose in the Jamboree (wiki/presentation) cannot be patented is because of general patent laws that says anything disclosed in public is already in the public domain and cannot be patented. There is however a one-year period after public disclosure where one can still file a patent application but this is only limited in the US.

Read more about our story with Intellectual Property.

*Interview was conducted by Owen, Adam, and Theodore*

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Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit. Libero fuga facilis vel consectetur quos sapiente deleniti eveniet dolores tempore eos deserunt officia quis ab? Excepturi vero tempore minus beatae voluptatem!Libero fuga facilis vel consectetur quos sapiente deleniti eveniet dolores tempore eos deserunt officia quis ab? Excepturi vero tempore minus beatae voluptatem! Libero fuga facilis vel consectetur quos sapiente deleniti eveniet dolores tempore eos deserunt officia quis ab? Excepturi vero tempore minus beatae voluptatem!Libero fuga facilis vel consectetur quos sapiente deleniti eveniet dolores tempore eos deserunt officia quis ab? Excepturi vero tempore minus beatae voluptatem! Libero fuga facilis vel consectetur quos sapiente deleniti eveniet dolores tempore eos deserunt officia quis ab? Excepturi vero tempore minus beatae voluptatem!Libero fuga facilis vel consectetur quos sapiente deleniti eveniet dolores tempore eos deserunt officia quis ab? Excepturi vero tempore minus beatae voluptatem! Libero fuga facilis vel consectetur quos sapiente deleniti eveniet dolores tempore eos deserunt officia quis ab? Excepturi vero tempore minus beatae voluptatem!Libero fuga facilis vel consectetur quos sapiente deleniti eveniet dolores tempore eos deserunt officia quis ab? Excepturi vero tempore minus beatae voluptatem! Libero fuga facilis vel consectetur quos sapiente deleniti eveniet dolores tempore eos deserunt officia quis ab? Excepturi vero tempore minus beatae voluptatem!Libero fuga facilis vel consectetur quos sapiente deleniti eveniet dolores tempore eos deserunt officia quis ab? Excepturi vero tempore minus beatae voluptatem! Libero fuga facilis vel consectetur quos sapiente deleniti eveniet dolores tempore eos deserunt officia quis ab? Excepturi vero tempore minus beatae voluptatem!