Stanford University’s Drew Endy is still one of the great enthusiasts for synthetic biology: the visionary field that looks forward to the day in which bio-engineers will create new functions for cells by plugging together synthesized-from-scratch ‘devices’ such as DNA, control structures, and even whole reaction pathways. “Biology is the most impressive platform for manufacturing stuff we’ve ever encountered,” Endydeclared at press conference on Friday. And to fully harness that power, he added, we need to be able to design the inner workings of the cell with as much confidence as electrical engineers now bring to microchip design.

Central to his vision is BioBricks , a catalog of standard molecular parts with well-characterized behavors that designers can mix and match to achieve the cellular functions they want. Dozens of labs have contributed thousands of parts to the registry over the past few years, says Endy—1500 last year alone. And therein lies the problem: who owns all these parts? And what sort of intellectual property protection do you give them? People do need to get credit for their work, after all. But patenting is out of the question: winning a biological patent typically takes several years and costs roughly $25,000. “The legal framework just doesn’t scale,” he says.

What you want is something more in the spirit of open source software, in which mechanisms like the Creative Commons license allows people to reused the software freely in non-commercial applications, so long as they give credit to the creator. But the Creative Commons license is grounded in copyright law, which is very differnt from patent law, and which does not apply to genes or other biological systems in any case.

So Endy has been working with the Boston Law firm of Fish and Richardson to devise a public agreement for BioBricks that would have much the same effect as a Creative Commons license, but that would be grounded instead in patent law. He believes that the agreement is the first such mechanism of its kind, and is breaking new legal ground. But in any case, it is now being circulated for legal comment. He and his partners are hoping to go public withit in early March.

Stanford University’s Drew Endy is still one of the great enthusiasts for synthetic biology: the visionary field that looks forward to the day in which bio-engineers will create new functions for cells by plugging together synthesized-from-scratch ‘devices’ such as DNA, control structures, and even whole reaction pathways. “Biology is the most impressive platform for manufacturing stuff we’ve ever encountered,” Endydeclared at press conference on Friday. And to fully harness that power, he added, we need to be able to design the inner workings of the cell with as much confidence as electrical engineers now bring to microchip design.

Central to his vision is BioBricks , a catalog of standard molecular parts with well-characterized behavors that designers can mix and match to achieve the cellular functions they want. Dozens of labs have contributed thousands of parts to the registry over the past few years, says Endy—1500 last year alone. And therein lies the problem: who owns all these parts? And what sort of intellectual property protection do you give them? People do need to get credit for their work, after all. But patenting is out of the question: winning a biological patent typically takes several years and costs roughly $25,000. “The legal framework just doesn’t scale,” he says.

What you want is something more in the spirit of open source software, in which mechanisms like the Creative Commons license allows people to reused the software freely in non-commercial applications, so long as they give credit to the creator. But the Creative Commons license is grounded in copyright law, which is very differnt from patent law, and which does not apply to genes or other biological systems in any case.

So Endy has been working with the Boston Law firm of Fish and Richardson to devise a public agreement for BioBricks that would have much the same effect as a Creative Commons license, but that would be grounded instead in patent law. He believes that the agreement is the first such mechanism of its kind, and is breaking new legal ground. But in any case, it is now being circulated for legal comment. He and his partners are hoping to go public withit in early March.