Up to $50k for your synbio startup this summer.

[John Cumbers]

Hi DIYBioers, 

I'm excited to be part of launching the first synbio incubator: http://singularityu.org/launchpad.  We based it on YCombinator and are funding up to $50k for your SynBio startup this summer.

Cheers, 

John

[Jonathan Cline]

Who owns the resultant intellectual property?

 

## Jonathan Cline
## jcl...@ieee.org
## Mobile: +1-805-617-0223
########################

[John Cumbers]

You / the company owns the IP.

John

[Cathal Garvey]

The investment involves equity ownership though: it seems SU us investing for a portion of the company. So, look on it as a form of sexy venture capital rather than a grant.

On this point my memory may be failing me but that's my recollection.

John Cumbers <johnc...@gmail.com> wrote:

>You / the company owns the IP.
>John
>
>On Sat, Mar 17, 2012 at 2:55 PM, Jonathan Cline <jnc...@gmail.com>
>wrote:
>
>> Who owns the resultant intellectual property?
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> ## Jonathan Cline
>> ## jcl...@ieee.org
>> ## Mobile: +1-805-617-0223
>> ########################
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Friday, February 3, 2012 12:50:31 AM UTC-8, John Cumbers wrote:
>>>
>>> Hi DIYBioers,
>>>
>>> I'm excited to be part of launching the first synbio incubator:

>>> http://singularityu.org/**launchpad
><http://singularityu.org/launchpad>.

>>> We based it on YCombinator and are funding up to $50k for your
>SynBio
>>> startup this summer.
>>>
>>> Cheers,
>>> John
>>>
>>>
>

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[Douglas Treadwell]

Seems like a good opportunity.

[Cathal Garvey]

Indeed it does! I'm not even remotely demeaning it, just establishing a relevant fact: ownership of ideas stays with creators, but investment involves partial ownership of resulting commercialisation.

[Bryan Bishop]

On Sat, Mar 17, 2012 at 6:02 PM, Cathal Garvey <cathal...@gmail.com> wrote:

Indeed it does! I'm not even remotely demeaning it, just establishing a relevant fact: ownership of ideas stays with creators, but investment involves partial ownership of resulting commercialisation.

Actually, the investment involves shared equity from the beginning (as a company). So even if you don't sell anything, your company (and you) are still on the hook. Of course, this is to be expected for this sort of setup.

- Bryan
http://heybryan.org/
1 512 203 0507

[Pieter]

It's great that there now is a dedicated incubator program for synbio. I am excited to see what will be the outcome. Whether 6-8% in shares is worth it depends, but from the investors point of view I think it's reasonable considering the risk. What would trouble me more is that going all the way to California (which is great) would also mean you need to start building up a network from scratch. With SU you are probably in good hands though...

[Cathal Garvey]

With any investment deal in DIYbio, my only major concern above and beyond the usual is with respect to patents and the open source philosophy, and the utter incompatibility of the two.

So, considering that it's Singularity University, I'm optimistic that they'd understand the aversion to patents and agree to terms forbidding patenting of company outputs.

In that vein, it's really cool to live in an age where there are so many noteworthy and successful examples of open source not-software to draw from.

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[Douglas Treadwell]

For the record, I'm not opposed to patents provided that they are used appropriately.  It really does take a ridiculous amount of money to fund R&D and if a company from who knows where can just rip off your intellectual property, you have no advantage over them.

Consider the future of company A that spends $500M on R&D and then $250M on production, vs company B that merely spends $250M on production.  If you keep that pattern up, company A will not be able to compete on price with company B, people will buy from company B or company A will have to match a price that doesn't help it recover it's R&D expenses.  Eventually, company A goes bankrupt or becomes another copycat company that doesn't do any R&D and just waits for the next sucker to do it.

[Douglas Treadwell]

Patents, used appropriately, are essentially an agreement between society and the company.

"Okay, you go ahead and do that R&D that normally you wouldn't do because you know somebody would just copy you.  In exchange we will agree not to buy anything from the copycat."

(This is hard to enforce at the demand side so instead we stop it at supply side by going after whoever is trying to sell something using your patented work.)

[Cathal Garvey]

This is a bit of a distract-ey conversation, and it's been hashed before. I'll simply concede that, for some industries with serious infrastructural issues, what you say is still true. However, I don't think it still holds as a general truth, and I think the lynchpin that you describe (easy control of the supply side) is rapidly becoming irrelevant: what then?

In any case, one would hope that an enterprising DIYbioer submitting to the SU programme would have her/his open-source business plans taken seriously. After all, 20-year monopolies are over half as long as the remaining-time-to-singularity according to Mr. Kurzweil! That's a hefty time-lag between invention and unencumbered further development. :)

[drllau]

> company A will not be able to compete on price with company B,

A = $500M R&D + $250M first mover
B = $250M = fast follower

1) Firstly, there will be a lead, a gap of at least several years for
B to understand the concepts. Russia stole a lot of US cold war tech
but just could sustain the technology trajectory

2) There are other ways of protecting IP like trade secrets
(particularly useful for Platform as a Service plays). Patents are
nothing more than a codified statutory lead period

3) A really smart strategy is for A to wait until B is about to go to
market, then release their next gen product whilst opening up last gen
to C,D,E,F. B is going to be screwed both ways.

4) Price is not the only factor ... look at Coke's sale of filtered
tap water at a premium

Depending on the business model, you may be able to find alternative
ways of funding R&D rather than upfront VC investment such as prizes
or bounties. As one investor noted, there is no shortage of resources,
only of resourcefulness.

Lawrence
http://www.linkedin.com/in/drllau

On Mar 19, 12:05 am, Douglas Treadwell

<therealepicureanid...@gmail.com> wrote:
> For the record, I'm not opposed to patents provided that they are used
> appropriately.  It really does take a ridiculous amount of money to fund
> R&D and if a company from who knows where can just rip off your
> intellectual property, you have no advantage over them.
>
> Consider the future of company A that spends $500M on R&D and then $250M on
> production, vs company B that merely spends $250M on production.  If you
> keep that pattern up, company A will not be able to compete on price with
> company B, people will buy from company B or company A will have to match a
> price that doesn't help it recover it's R&D expenses.  Eventually, company
> A goes bankrupt or becomes another copycat company that doesn't do any R&D
> and just waits for the next sucker to do it.
>

> On Sun, Mar 18, 2012 at 3:14 AM, Cathal Garvey <cathalgar...@gmail.com>wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> > With any investment deal in DIYbio, my only major concern above and beyond
> > the usual is with respect to patents and the open source philosophy, and
> > the utter incompatibility of the two.
>
> > So, considering that it's Singularity University, I'm optimistic that
> > they'd understand the aversion to patents and agree to terms forbidding
> > patenting of company outputs.
>
> > In that vein, it's really cool to live in an age where there are so many
> > noteworthy and successful examples of open source not-software to draw from.
>

> > On 18 March 2012 10:08, Pieter <pietervanbohee...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >> It's great that there now is a dedicated incubator program for synbio. I
> >> am excited to see what will be the outcome. Whether 6-8% in shares is worth
> >> it depends, but from the investors point of view I think it's reasonable
> >> considering the risk. What would trouble me more is that going all the way
> >> to California (which is great) would also mean you need to start building
> >> up a network from scratch. With SU you are probably in good hands though...
>
> >> On Sunday, 18 March 2012 00:05:44 UTC+1, Bryan Bishop wrote:
>

> >>> On Sat, Mar 17, 2012 at 6:02 PM, Cathal Garvey <cathalgar...@gmail.com>wrote:
>
> >>>> Indeed it does! I'm not even remotely demeaning it, just establishing a
> >>>> relevant fact: ownership of ideas stays with creators, but investment
> >>>> involves partial ownership of resulting commercialisation.
>
> >>> Actually, the investment involves shared equity from the beginning (as a
> >>> company). So even if you don't sell anything, your company (and you) are
> >>> still on the hook. Of course, this is to be expected for this sort of setup.
>
> >>> - Bryan
> >>>http://heybryan.org/
> >>> 1 512 203 0507
>
> >>  --
> >> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
> >> "DIYbio" group.
> >> To view this discussion on the web visit
> >>https://groups.google.com/d/msg/diybio/-/Uj-KOoFpiZUJ.
>
> >> To post to this group, send email to diy...@googlegroups.com.
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>
> > --
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> > twitter.com/onetruecathal
> > joindiaspora.com/u/cathalgarvey

> > PGP Public Key:http://bit.ly/CathalGKey<http://letters.cunningprojects.com>

[drllau]

@Cathal is correct ... where there is a will there will be a way. One
example is FPGA IP cores ... you can encrypt the software code for a
higher performance version over one which is creative commons and
resolve at foundary level. Other people have looked at alternatives
(eg http://nanowares.wordpress.com/)

Lawrence
http://www.linkedin.com/in/drllau

On Mar 19, 12:34 am, Cathal Garvey <cathalgar...@gmail.com> wrote:
> This is a bit of a distract-ey conversation, and it's been hashed before.
> I'll simply concede that, for some industries with serious infrastructural
> issues, what you say is still true. However, I don't think it still holds
> as a general truth, and I think the lynchpin that you describe (easy
> control of the supply side) is rapidly becoming irrelevant: what then?
>
> In any case, one would hope that an enterprising DIYbioer submitting to the
> SU programme would have her/his open-source business plans taken seriously.
> After all, 20-year monopolies are over half as long as the
> remaining-time-to-singularity according to Mr. Kurzweil! That's a hefty
> time-lag between invention and unencumbered further development. :)
>
> On 18 March 2012 11:06, Douglas Treadwell

> <therealepicureanid...@gmail.com>wrote:

>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> > Patents, used appropriately, are essentially an agreement between society
> > and the company.
>
> > "Okay, you go ahead and do that R&D that normally you wouldn't do because
> > you know somebody would just copy you.  In exchange we will agree not to
> > buy anything from the copycat."
>
> > (This is hard to enforce at the demand side so instead we stop it at
> > supply side by going after whoever is trying to sell something using your
> > patented work.)
>
> > On Sun, Mar 18, 2012 at 4:05 AM, Douglas Treadwell <
> > therealepicureanid...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >> For the record, I'm not opposed to patents provided that they are used
> >> appropriately.  It really does take a ridiculous amount of money to fund
> >> R&D and if a company from who knows where can just rip off your
> >> intellectual property, you have no advantage over them.
>
> >> Consider the future of company A that spends $500M on R&D and then $250M
> >> on production, vs company B that merely spends $250M on production.  If you
> >> keep that pattern up, company A will not be able to compete on price with
> >> company B, people will buy from company B or company A will have to match a
> >> price that doesn't help it recover it's R&D expenses.  Eventually, company
> >> A goes bankrupt or becomes another copycat company that doesn't do any R&D
> >> and just waits for the next sucker to do it.
>

> >> On Sun, Mar 18, 2012 at 3:14 AM, Cathal Garvey <cathalgar...@gmail.com>wrote:
>
> >>> With any investment deal in DIYbio, my only major concern above and
> >>> beyond the usual is with respect to patents and the open source philosophy,
> >>> and the utter incompatibility of the two.
>
> >>> So, considering that it's Singularity University, I'm optimistic that
> >>> they'd understand the aversion to patents and agree to terms forbidding
> >>> patenting of company outputs.
>
> >>> In that vein, it's really cool to live in an age where there are so many
> >>> noteworthy and successful examples of open source not-software to draw from.
>

> >>> On 18 March 2012 10:08, Pieter <pietervanbohee...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >>>> It's great that there now is a dedicated incubator program for synbio.
> >>>> I am excited to see what will be the outcome. Whether 6-8% in shares is
> >>>> worth it depends, but from the investors point of view I think it's
> >>>> reasonable considering the risk. What would trouble me more is that going
> >>>> all the way to California (which is great) would also mean you need to
> >>>> start building up a network from scratch. With SU you are probably in good
> >>>> hands though...
>
> >>>> On Sunday, 18 March 2012 00:05:44 UTC+1, Bryan Bishop wrote:
>

> >>>>> On Sat, Mar 17, 2012 at 6:02 PM, Cathal Garvey <cathalgar...@gmail.com

> >>>>> > wrote:
>
> >>>>>> Indeed it does! I'm not even remotely demeaning it, just establishing
> >>>>>> a relevant fact: ownership of ideas stays with creators, but investment
> >>>>>> involves partial ownership of resulting commercialisation.
>
> >>>>> Actually, the investment involves shared equity from the beginning (as
> >>>>> a company). So even if you don't sell anything, your company (and you) are
> >>>>> still on the hook. Of course, this is to be expected for this sort of setup.
>
> >>>>> - Bryan
> >>>>>http://heybryan.org/
> >>>>> 1 512 203 0507
>
> >>>>  --
> >>>> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google
> >>>> Groups "DIYbio" group.
> >>>> To view this discussion on the web visit
> >>>>https://groups.google.com/d/msg/diybio/-/Uj-KOoFpiZUJ.
>
> >>>> To post to this group, send email to diy...@googlegroups.com.
> >>>> To unsubscribe from this group, send email to
> >>>> diybio+un...@googlegroups.com.
> >>>> For more options, visit this group at
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>
> >>> --
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> >>> twitter.com/onetruecathal
> >>> joindiaspora.com/u/cathalgarvey

> >>> PGP Public Key:http://bit.ly/CathalGKey<http://letters.cunningprojects.com>

>
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