AfCS > Plan for Data Sharing and Intellectual Property
Our plan for management of intellectual property and sharing of
research resources is unchanged from the original; the goals of this plan are three-fold:
- To support the open, interactive nature of the relationship between Alliance members
- To minimize administrative delays related to management of intellectual property and proprietary interests
- To facilitate the rapid placement of research discoveries into the public domain
To accomplish these goals, the Participating Investigators
(with the exception of Directors of Bridging Projects, which are now complete)
and the Alliance Laboratories do not retain any intellectual property rights to
their research discoveries that are a direct result of funding or reagents provided
by the Alliance, and all new data, once verified, is placed in the public domain via
our web site (www.signaling-gateway.org). This plan was controversial
five years ago. We will not repeat here the justification that was presented originally
and our arguments that it is consistent with 37CFR401 (Bayh-Dole). The plan has
worked and has posed no significant difficulties other than those encountered in
securing initial approval from some of the participating Universities. In subsequent
negotiations with newly-engaged entities (e.g., Vanderbilt University), we have simply
presented it as "take it or leave it", and local investigator pressure has been
sufficient to avoid further prolonged discussions. This plan could have posed significant
difficulties in exploiting technologies developed as part of one briefly and very
modestly funded Bridging Project, but the project was terminated for scientific
reasons before the intellectual property issue became rate-limiting.
All those who provide reagents to the AfCS sign a simple,
non-negotiable Material Transfer Agreement (MTA) that assures that (1) the provider
will retain no proprietary rights in intellectual property developed through use
of the reagent, (2) the reagent is provided without commercial obligation to a
third party, (3) the AfCS laboratory will not distribute the reagent to any other
non-AfCS third party without prior written consent, (4) the AfCS will not be responsible
for reporting discoveries to the provider related to the use of the reagent,
and (5) the AfCS will use the reagent solely for AfCS-funded research and will not
retain any proprietary rights related to use of the reagent.
All new data developed under Alliance funding is placed on our
Internet site in a timely manner. Once placed within the public domain, these data
may be used by any party for research and/or commercial purposes. Patent protection
of the posted data is not possible because of public disclosure and the obvious
lack of inventorship. Our comfort with this approach in part stems from the fact
that AfCS Laboratories utilize mouse systems, and thus the value of the data lie
in their utility as research tools, which have little direct commercialization
potential. Specifically, AfCS projects do not include extensions into human systems.
However, both AfCS and non-AfCS researchers, acting outside the Alliance, may use
these data as a platform to develop new discoveries, and the AfCS will not have
any "reach-through" rights to such discoveries.
DNA-based reagents developed by the Alliance are being distributed
in a timely manner through the American Type Culture Collection (ATCC) (see Section XI.D).
It may in the future be possible to distribute cell lines carrying lentiviral constructs
that direct RNAi-mediated inhibition of the expression of specific genes. However, it
remains to be seen how many of these lines remain sufficiently stable for such distribution.
In any case, validated sequences for performing such knockdowns, as well as the plasmids
used for construction of the viruses, are being distributed and should be an extremely valuable resource.
