Counter Culture Labs + BioCurious do iGEM: Real Vegan Cheese!

[Patrik D'haeseleer]

Hi all!

Come check out the IndieGogo campaign we just started to to fund the Counter Culture Labs / BioCurious DIYbio team for iGEM:

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/real-vegan-cheese

The goal of the project is to engineer the four major cheese proteins (caseins) into yeast, express and purify them, combine with water and fats to form micelles, and then make cheese! No more odd nut cheese substitutes! *Real* cheese, made from real cheese proteins, made in real baker's yeast!

We've got a $75 "Biohacker Special" just for this crowd: all the plasmids and detailed instructions for how to make your own cheese-producing yeast strain.

For all you hardcore DIYbio fans, check out the tons of information we've already collected on our wiki:

https://wiki.realvegancheese.org/index.php/Molecular_biology

Please help us spread the word! If you can't afford to contribute, go for the $1 perk to get our updates and talk about us on your social intertubes. There's tons of other cool rewards as well: from the obligatory T-shirt, to some unique 3D printed jewelry (oops - still need to add that one!), to brainstorming sessions with your favorite mad scientists.

Or if you know someone willing to spend $10 million to shut us down - well, there's an option for that too! :-)

Patrik

[Marc Dusseiller]

nice!

i have been working a bit on the OpenCheese and also OpenLab (Lab is the German word for rennet :-)

doing workshops on cheese making, as a metaphor for synbio in general.

http://hackteria.org/projects/cheese-keju-making-experiments-in-yogya/

are you also working on chymosin? i'd love to do workshop on introducing the gene for the rennet into cells and make our own OpenChymosin!

http://hackteria.org/wiki/index.php/Say_Cheese#OpenLab

Many people dont yet know that most (80%) of the global cheese production is using FPC (fermentation produced Chymosin)... aka the original cow-gene is introduced into either molds or yeasts. it's sometimes also called vegetarian rennet :-)

there is quite an interesting web of patents around the prodcution of rennet...

good luck!

m

[Ryan Pandya]

So exciting to see another group trying to make real, authentic vegan dairy products! Good luck and let us know if we can help in any way.

My group, Muufri, has been working on vegan dairy for a few months, since May of this year. We're participating in a startup accelerator called SynBio Axlr8r, which has given us $30k in funding and access to lab space at University College Cork in Ireland.

Our plan is to release a bottled milk that can compete with soy / almond / rice-type milks, and which can be used the same way real milk can -- in cheesemaking, yogurts, ice creams, etc.

Since you guys are doing real vegan cheese, I imagine there's a lot of room for collaboration between our groups. For instance, we're developing full-flavor, plant-based milkfats that could help your cheese taste amazing. Or, maybe our vegan milk could even prove to be a good feedstock for your cheesemaking process.

We are passionate about animal welfare - our end goal is to end the exploitation and abuse of cows. According to Muufri, the best way to accomplish this will be with a thriving business. It seems like you guys are on a similar page, so we should definitely talk!

[Yuriy Fazylov]

How did you come up with the idea? I remember sharing it with a couple of people about a year and a half ago. Trying to track down who cannot be trusted.

[Yuriy Fazylov]

Why do Chymosin or rennet? They could just make truncated aa sequences proteolytic enzyme would cleave them into anyway.

[Cathal Garvey]

Hi Yuriy,
It's not clear who you're speaking to, as you've cut the reply block
out. I can say, at least, that the idea of artificial milk has even
occurred to me in the past, and I'm merely a strict vegetarian rather
than a vegan.

Ideas often occur in parallel. The plane was invented by two groups
simultaneously, as was (IIRC) the telephone, electricity, and (nearly)
the nuclear bomb. Ideas have their "time", when the conditions and
inspirations are right, and usually a handful of groups will encounter
the idea and the means at the same time.

I can say, at least, that the Muufri guys (who I'm acting as pro-bono
mentor to, I should add) were not initially aware of the CounterCulture
team, so that's another datum towards parallel innovation.

-Cathal

On 03/07/14 07:28, Yuriy Fazylov wrote:
> How did you come up with the idea? I remember sharing it with a couple of people about a year and a half ago. Trying to track down who cannot be trusted.
>

--
T: @onetruecathal, @IndieBBDNA
P: +353876363185
W: http://indiebiotech.com

[Cathal Garvey]

On-topic; Hey Patrik, really exciting to see this up! I'll try and rub
some euros together to throw your way. :)

First up, disclosure; as you probably know, I'm a mentor and design
consultant to Synbio Axlr8r teams, including Muufri. I offered them some
assistance on their first designs, and may continue offering help.
However, I'm not being paid (yet, at any rate), so it's not very
intensive assistance and I have no monetary bias, just social!

I've been badgering all the teams here in Cork to stay open and to
resist the lure of old-guard patent-heavy business, the kind of nonsense
that's clouded and delayed biotechnology for decades already. Time will
tell how my efforts pan out, but the Muufri guys are here more for a
mission (panveganism) than for personal gain, and they tell me they
aren't planning to patent their outputs. So, that's pretty awesome.

OTOH, you guys are planning to patent, which confuses me:
https://wiki.realvegancheese.org/index.php/Real_Vegan_Cheese

"We plan to patent and abandon to keep this technology free for everyone"

..it's cool that you want to abandon it, but isn't that what prior art
is for, instead? And, by registering a patent in the first place, you're
creating a disincentive to those who don't *know* that you've abandoned
the patent.

Worse, if the patent is held by a legal entity or person who later goes
bankrupt or into liquidation, the patents may be forcibly sold to
someone who'll quite happily use them to destroy others' livelihoods and
innovations.

There *is* scope for using patents in an open-source way, by using
licenses like the DPL that establish an irrevocable license for use and
re-use, but it would be my view that the stultifying impact of even
registering patents, and the absence of a "patent metadata" search
function for people to know that it's DPL licensed, still makes it a net
lose versus simply registering public prior art.

Speaking of which, the Muufri guys have been pretty public about their
intention to make yeast-produced synbio milk, so it's not even clear
that the non-obvious parts of the project are patentable, anymore. Much
better to continue spamming all the good ideas onto highly trafficked
mailing lists to stymie AppleSoftOogle-style "Embrace Extend
Extinguish", and carry on innovating.

Anyway, that's my 2c. I'll carry on being everyone's underfunded Jimminy
Cricket as unobtrusively as I can, having shared that.

[Yuriy Fazylov]

Sorry about that. I was trying to address Patrik.

You are right of course. 

Still, its a lot cooler project than IndieBB. You should have went with it. I should have went with it. 

[Yuriy Fazylov]

oh i got it. you supervise the team involved with it at Axlr8r. 

[Patrik D'haeseleer]

Hi Yuriy,

I know Marc Juul has been talking about this idea here in the SF Bay Area for at least the past three years. 

I actually tried to run a highschool iGEM team on the topic two years ago, but that was the first year iGEM was doing highschool teams, and with lackluster support from the school, we just couldn't get the logistics to work out. Let me see, I think I still have the wiki around somewhere. Ah - here you go:

http://foothillhighgem.pbworks.com/w/page/49652305/FrontPage

It's not really surprising that multiple people would come up with the same idea. Especially with all the attention around in vitro meat the past couple of years.

Patrik

[Cathal Garvey]

Indeed; I'm not working on IndieBB, as I failed to raise sufficient
funding. I'm back to day-job at the moment, although I am trying to
raise support for a biomakerspace in Cork: @formabiolabs on Twitter, if
anyone's interested. If we can raise funds for that, then it'll keep me
busy hacking and attracting impressionable people into science for a
while longer.

As far as the "awesomeness" of IndieBB, I never meant to do it because
it would be awesome, but because nobody's yet created a versatile,
built-for-purpose cloning platform for DIY-Synbio. In other words, I
feel something like IndieBB needs to exist to help people get past the
annoying legacy issues with most available plasmids that call for
antibiotics or outmoded cloning strategies.

Though, you're probably right; I should have directed my attention
elsewhere, because I'd vastly overestimated the appetite for dedicated
platforms in the DIYbio community at this time. I did write something up
on this basis, and for those pondering which projects to attempt and
which things are likely to succeed, perhaps those thoughts will prove
useful:

http://www.indiebiotech.com/?p=245

[Patrik D'haeseleer]

On Thursday, July 3, 2014 6:39:28 AM UTC-7, Cathal Garvey wrote:

OTOH, you guys are planning to patent, which confuses me:
https://wiki.realvegancheese.org/index.php/Real_Vegan_Cheese

"We plan to patent and abandon to keep this technology free for everyone"

..it's cool that you want to abandon it, but isn't that what prior art
is for, instead? And, by registering a patent in the first place, you're
creating a disincentive to those who don't *know* that you've abandoned
the patent.

Worse, if the patent is held by a legal entity or person who later goes
bankrupt or into liquidation, the patents may be forcibly sold to
someone who'll quite happily use them to destroy others' livelihoods and
innovations.

There *is* scope for using patents in an open-source way, by using
licenses like the DPL that establish an irrevocable license for use and
re-use, but it would be my view that the stultifying impact of even
registering patents, and the absence of a "patent metadata" search
function for people to know that it's DPL licensed, still makes it a net
lose versus simply registering public prior art.

We've actually had some lengthy discussions on how to best make sure that this technology would stay open to anyone wanting to use it. Spurred on partially  by not knowing which way the Muufri team would swing on this.

We have looked at the DPL pretty closely, and unfortunately the current incarnation is NOT irrevocable. So even if we were to enter something into the DPL, if we happen to go bust a couple years down the line and the patent falls into someone else's hands, they'd be free to close it back up again. Also, the DPL doesn't just exclude patent trolls and multinationals with huge patent portfolios - it would also exclude small independent inventors who own one or two patents and who are not ready to give them away under the DPL. If we really want to make sure this technology is open to all, I think it really should be open to *all*

Purely relying on published prior art isn't really a solution either, because having prior art does not guarantee that the patent examiner will even bother to do a google search if someone else tries to patent your idea from under you. It does provide you with ammunition to challenge a patent in court, but that's usually not much of an option for us small fry.

The "file and abandon" approach seems to be the best way to force the USPTO to actually see the prior art. Essentially, you have to go all the way to filing a patent application, and then you formally abandon the application. The effect is that the application is now permanently entered into the USPTO's own internal database, and that it *will* show up if anyone else tries to patent it.

The drawback is that you have to put in all the time, effort and money to file a full patent application. And then when you're ready to get a patent, you just tear it all up. So it's actually a much bigger commitment than just publishing your work on a wiki to stake your claim at prior art.

Patrik

[Patrik D'haeseleer]

Alternatively, if our goal really is to get as many people as possible to eat vegan cheese as soon as possible, then we should just patent the heck out of it, show that it can be done cheaper than from cow's milk, and then sell all the rights to Kraft.

Sad, but probably true...

Patrik

[Cathal Garvey]

To be fair, if you guys were that worried about Muufri, you could have
just discussed the matter with them. They've been having the exact same
finger-biting exercise about patenting, fair use and panveganism, so
creating artificial divisions and starting to think competitively
doesn't really do anyone any favours.

[Marc Juul]

Hi Cathal. I will try to explain. First, let me start by saying that all of our patent considerations so far are based around the U.S. patent regime. We are researching other regimes but do not yet fully understand the differences.

We are trying to ensure that everything we do that is potentially patentable is put into the public domain permanently. We have had long conversations with several lawyers, and long conversations in our groups where we considered the benefits and drawbacks of different approaches.

You can prevent a patent from being granted by showing prior art. The problem is that the U.S. patent office does not have the time or resources to go search the world for possible prior art. At most they will do a search of published scientific articles, but sometimes they just check existing patents. You can still use prior art to invalidate a patent after it was granted, but that involves a going through the courts with all the costs associated. Effectively you must file your work with the patent office to establish prior art in a way that is meaningful. Now, in 2012 laws went into effect that created a period of 6 months during the patent pending period where anyone can file documents to show prior art. There are two problems with that approach, the first is that you have to constantly remain vigilant and check pending patents to see if any of them are relevant to your work, the second is that we've been told there are ways to get around having this period (though I haven't verified if this is actually the case).

So, we have to file our patents if we want to prevent other patents. That sucks. The good news is that we can do a few things once we have our patents. One is to use a license such as the Defensive Patent License, which I think is super interesting and which would totally be my choice for this project since it has some (minimal) chance of preventing large corporations with large patent portfolios from using the patents while allowing everyone who shares to use your patents. It's like a stronger GPL that says you have to GPL everything you (or your organization) publishes, but for patents. Most of the other people thought it was problematic. I'm still not convinced that we shouldn't use the DPL, but we will have more time to discuss and make final decisions in the time it takes to get our patents.

The current solution on the table is to file our patents and explicitly abandon them. This creates prior art that will definitely be seen by the patent office and at the same time puts the patents _permanently_ into the public domain.

So, we are patenting because the system is so broken that we have to patent in order to put it permanently in the public domain. It sucks but that's how it is for now.

--

marc/juul

 

[Cathal Garvey]

Is it legally possible to abandon a patent in this way, so that they
have no defined owner from whom they can be taken by liquidation,
lawsuit or bankruptcy? Unless you are sure that ownership can be
permanently discarded in this way, the patent remains a loaded gun.

[Ryan Pandya]

This dilemma is exactly what Muufri's having trouble mulling over. We're entirely supportive of open science, but we have to admit that it is a lower priority, for us, than getting vegan dairy out on the market. At the end of the day, disincentivized high schoolers matter less to us than exploited animals.

If it has to be one or the other, we choose vegan dairy over open science. And the thing is, it's still not clear to me that the best strategy for wide-scale adoption of Muufri/Real Vegan Cheese/Etc is compatible with open-science ideals. 

Let me be clear - I don't doubt that it can be done, but Perumal, Isha, and I don't know enough to strategize at that level. Ultimately, you folks are a LOT more knowledgeable (and passionate) about the IP issue than we are. 

Again, we're happy to discuss this and we'd consider collaborating and sharing our data, but so far we've been hitting a brick wall with you guys...

Ryan Pandya

+1 (203) 848-8633

ry...@ryanpandya.com

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[Ryan Pandya]

Why not just do our thing, no patents, and candidly answer any questions about the technology that come to us? So far, that's been Muufri's strategy for dealing with this IP nonsense. 

Maybe I'm naive, but it seems simple enough to make everyone happy..

Ryan Pandya

+1 (203) 848-8633

ry...@ryanpandya.com

[Cathal Garvey]

> Again, we're happy to discuss this and we'd consider collaborating and
> sharing our data, but so far we've been hitting a brick wall with you
> guys...

Which surprised me, frankly, though I can see where Marc was coming from
and relayed that impression on this end. As long as Muufri would
*consider* patenting, why would an open source team consider giving any
support or collaboration?

Of course, now we have the CounterCulture team *committing* to patent,
so it's a surprise reversal! Sudden Muufri are the more open team.

Can't you guys just decide on a strategy and either co-patent-abandon or
just get on with it? :)

On 04/07/14 11:03, Ryan Pandya wrote:
> This dilemma is exactly what Muufri's having trouble mulling over. We're
> entirely supportive of open science, but we have to admit that it is a
> lower priority, for us, than getting vegan dairy out on the market. At the
> end of the day, disincentivized high schoolers matter less to us than
> exploited animals.
>
> If it has to be one or the other, we choose vegan dairy over open science.
> And the thing is, it's still not clear to me that the best strategy for
> wide-scale adoption of Muufri/Real Vegan Cheese/Etc is compatible with
> open-science ideals.
>
> Let me be clear - I don't doubt that it can be done, but Perumal, Isha, and
> I don't know enough to strategize at that level. Ultimately, you folks are
> a LOT more knowledgeable (and passionate) about the IP issue than we are.
>
> Again, we're happy to discuss this and we'd consider collaborating and
> sharing our data, but so far we've been hitting a brick wall with you
> guys...
>

> *Ryan Pandya*

>> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/diybio/ac8d427f-9352-4b07-97be-8d4f4f4b2165%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer>
>> .

>>
>> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
>>
>

[Marc Juul]

On Fri, Jul 4, 2014 at 3:02 AM, Cathal Garvey <cathal...@cathalgarvey.me> wrote:

Is it legally possible to abandon a patent in this way, so that they
have no defined owner from whom they can be taken by liquidation,
lawsuit or bankruptcy? Unless you are sure that ownership can be
permanently discarded in this way, the patent remains a loaded gun.

Most definitely yes. If you abandon a patent by not filing the correct paperwork on time then you can apply for reinstatement, but if you expressly abandon a patent under USPTO 711 37 C.F.R 1.138 then you cannot apply for reinstatement. It is forever in the public domian.

--

marc/juul

[Cathal Garvey]

This. People buy stuff because of brand awareness and loyalty, nobody
buys because there's a "Patent Pending" label on the front of the
package. If you guys all want great vegan cheese to exist, sell and
supplant the regular kind, you ought to be making a huge stir about this
and making sure that there isn't a vegan in the world who hasn't heard
of your projects. Patents are a distraction and a minefield that is
clearly, already, wasting time better spent creating something.

On 04/07/14 11:04, Ryan Pandya wrote:
> Why not just do our thing, no patents, and candidly answer any questions
> about the technology that come to us? So far, that's been Muufri's strategy
> for dealing with this IP nonsense.
>
> Maybe I'm naive, but it seems simple enough to make everyone happy..
>

> *Ryan Pandya*

> +1 (203) 848-8633
> ry...@ryanpandya.com
>
>
> On Fri, Jul 4, 2014 at 11:03 AM, Ryan Pandya <ryan....@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> This dilemma is exactly what Muufri's having trouble mulling over. We're
>> entirely supportive of open science, but we have to admit that it is a
>> lower priority, for us, than getting vegan dairy out on the market. At the
>> end of the day, disincentivized high schoolers matter less to us than
>> exploited animals.
>>
>> If it has to be one or the other, we choose vegan dairy over open science.
>> And the thing is, it

[Cathal Garvey]

That, at least, is a comfort. If that's the intention, then, why the
competition? Invite co-ownership with other vegan dairy teams, and
co-abandon. Everyone has a finger on the button, so nobody's potentially
on the receiving end, and we can all get back to effective biohacking.

On 04/07/14 11:07, Marc Juul wrote:
> On Fri, Jul 4, 2014 at 3:02 AM, Cathal Garvey <cathal...@cathalgarvey.me>
> wrote:
>
>> Is it legally possible to abandon a patent in this way, so that they
>> have no defined owner from whom they can be taken by liquidation,
>> lawsuit or bankruptcy? Unless you are sure that ownership can be
>> permanently discarded in this way, the patent remains a loaded gun.
>>
>
> Most definitely yes. If you abandon a patent by not filing the correct
> paperwork on time then you can apply for reinstatement, but if you
> expressly abandon a patent under USPTO 711 37 C.F.R 1.138 then you cannot
> apply for reinstatement. It is forever in the public domian.
>

--

[Marc Juul]

On Fri, Jul 4, 2014 at 3:03 AM, Ryan Pandya <ryan....@gmail.com> wrote:

This dilemma is exactly what Muufri's having trouble mulling over. We're entirely supportive of open science, but we have to admit that it is a lower priority, for us, than getting vegan dairy out on the market. At the end of the day, disincentivized high schoolers matter less to us than exploited animals.

If it has to be one or the other, we choose vegan dairy over open science. And the thing is, it's still not clear to me that the best strategy for wide-scale adoption of Muufri/Real Vegan Cheese/Etc is compatible with open-science ideals. 

Let me be clear - I don't doubt that it can be done, but Perumal, Isha, and I don't know enough to strategize at that level. Ultimately, you folks are a LOT more knowledgeable (and passionate) about the IP issue than we are. 

Again, we're happy to discuss this and we'd consider collaborating and sharing our data, but so far we've been hitting a brick wall with you guys...

My problem is that you haven't shared anything. Where is your wiki? Where is your open mailing list? Where is the info for calling in to participate in your open meetings?

If Muufri wants to know all about our research you can just follow our mailing list and read our wiki or listen in to our weekly meetings. If you want to talk to us, they can use our mailing list or speak up at our weekly meetings.

We have no info about what you are working on other than the recent new scientist article and scant website. If you want us to ask then I hereby ask: Please share your research with us! We are already sharing all of ours with, not just you, but with the world.

We would love to collaborate, but not if it is a one-way collaboration.

The ball is entirely in your court here.

--

marc/juul

[Marc Juul]

On Fri, Jul 4, 2014 at 3:07 AM, Cathal Garvey <cathal...@cathalgarvey.me> wrote:

> Again, we're happy to discuss this and we'd consider collaborating and
> sharing our data, but so far we've been hitting a brick wall with you
> guys...

Which surprised me, frankly, though I can see where Marc was coming from
and relayed that impression on this end. As long as Muufri would
*consider* patenting, why would an open source team consider giving any
support or collaboration?

Of course, now we have the CounterCulture team *committing* to patent,
so it's a surprise reversal! Sudden Muufri are the more open team.

No. No definitely not. Read my previous email. Our only concern is putting this into the public domain in a way that is effective. Unfortunately under the U.S. patent regime that means filing and abandoning. It will be clear that these are abandoned and public domain patents. We are doing a lot of extra work that we honestly really don't want to do, just to ensure that all of this remains open.

[Ryan Pandya]

We've got two guys here, you have, what, eleven? I barely have time to respond to this email thread let alone sit down for a homework assignment to make a wiki.

It's not that we don't want to share everything (although admittedly, I'm not sure -- see above) it's more that we're just too busy for it to be a priority right now. 

We're acting like there are thousands of biohackers with infinite funding and lab space just itching for a chance to make vegan dairy (using, implicitly, our research). I somehow doubt this; I think the people in the world that care are all reading this thread, right now.

This wiki would basically just be for Marc and Patrik to read. Uhh..I'd rather just talk. I'd always rather talk. Call me up sometime, and if you want to record it or whatever - fine, doesn't matter to us.

Ryan Pandya

+1 (203) 848-8633

ry...@ryanpandya.com

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[Marc Juul]

On Fri, Jul 4, 2014 at 3:20 AM, Ryan Pandya <ryan....@gmail.com> wrote:

We've got two guys here, you have, what, eleven? I barely have time to respond to this email thread let alone sit down for a homework assignment to make a wiki.

It's not that we don't want to share everything (although admittedly, I'm not sure -- see above) it's more that we're just too busy for it to be a priority right now. 

We're all busy. Seriously. We may be many people working on this, but we all have at least a full time job or equivalent at the same time. We _make_ it a priority to share because we don't see it as an option to not share, and yes that means less time spent in the lab and it also means pulling an occasional all-nighter to explain patenting and openness on a public mailing list.

 

We're acting like there are thousands of biohackers with infinite funding and lab space just itching for a chance to make vegan dairy (using, implicitly, our research). I somehow doubt this; I think the people in the world that care are all reading this thread, right now.

If everyone used this metric to decide whether to open their research / source code / etc, then the world would be a much poorer place. You cannot predict who will find what useful. Not now and definitely not 10 years in the future. We should all strive to document what we do so we build a global commons containing the sum-total of human knowledge, or at least the more important parts, and I think this counts. When you say that you don't have time, that means that you're not making it a priority. I'm saying that you _must_ make it a priority. We don't have any people dedicated to documenting what we do (except maybe for the note-takers at meetings), instead it is up to everyone to document their own work. I assume you do the same. You keep lab notes and send emails amongst each-other. Maybe spend ten minutes a day writing up a short description of work done and results gathered, maybe take a photo of your lab notes, and then share. Put it on google docs or whatever is easy. It doesn't have to be pretty or take a lot of time, just put up a few notes about what your plans are and what you're doing every week. Maybe link to important articles if you find any. Others can clean it up and organize it nicely.

 

This wiki would basically just be for Marc and Patrik to read. Uhh..I'd rather just talk. I'd always rather talk.

Or anyone anywhere in the world now or at any point in the future who cares about how to make vegan casein and milk. As the recent response to our crowdfunding campaign has shown, that is not just me and Patrik, and I expect it to be a significant chunk of the world's population at some point in the future, but maybe that's just me being optimistic.

> Call me up sometime, and if you want to record it or whatever - fine, doesn't matter to us.

OK! We shall do so! We don't have to record it, but if you update us on your research on the phone then we will document your work on our wiki :-) We can even do a weekly call if you have time!

--

marc/juul

[Marc Juul]

On Fri, Jul 4, 2014 at 3:10 AM, Cathal Garvey <cathal...@cathalgarvey.me> wrote:

That, at least, is a comfort. If that's the intention, then, why the
competition? Invite co-ownership with other vegan dairy teams, and
co-abandon. Everyone has a finger on the button, so nobody's potentially
on the receiving end, and we can all get back to effective biohacking.

I would be totally willing to have some lawyers write up a contract that binds both teams to explicitly abandon any vegan dairy related patents or permanently and irrevocably license them under the Defensive Patent License. I'm no lawyer so I don't know if such a contract is feasible, but it sounds like a good idea to me! We could even extend it to cover copyrightable materials to be licensed under licenses that adhere to the free culture definition.

Ryan, would you consider something like this? I will bring it up with our team at our next meeting but I'm pretty sure everyone would be excited about it.

One problem we might have to tackle is that the Real Vegan Cheese project currently is not a legal entity, but eh, we've spun up quite a few non-profits in the past year so what's one more.

--

marc/juul

[Ryan Pandya]

This sounds good to me -- tentatively. I would be willing to spend some time at the end of every day writing up a summary (and as you said, we do already do this internally, I would just take out the parts about company strategy/investor relations).

Which brings me to my other, and far bigger, point: Muufri is for-profit. We are, and we can't really budge on that. We think that the best way - frankly, the only way - to disrupt this industry is to do it as a business.

The Real Vegan Cheese project seems to have a different focus entirely. If I understand correctly, you guys want people to be able to buy vegan cheese online and/or make it themselves. Which is awesome! But what I want is: short term, "real" vegan milk becomes available for people who aren't happy with soy/almond/whatever but avoid dairy for any number of reasons. Long-term, the milk you buy and the dairy you consume in processed foods, becomes vegan, because it uses "real vegan milk" on the back-end.

In short, we want to get on shelves. Meaning: large-scale production, distribution, and being taken seriously by chain stores. Since this will require funding, it also means being taken seriously by investors.

Now, the main things I'm not sure about are: will investors require us to file patents? And, will we lose any investor appeal we may or may not have right now by sharing everything? What about sharing most things, but keeping a few innovations close to heart? (My guess is, that's a no-no from your perspective.)

Anyway, those are my thoughts for now. I appreciate that you guys are staying up insanely late to talk about this - feel free to call it a night and we can pick this up later.

Ryan Pandya

+1 (203) 848-8633

ry...@ryanpandya.com

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[Cathal Garvey]

Any investor with remaining grey matter will be far more impressed if
you can relate how much of a community following and how much
prospective customer loyalty you have accrued. Patents are the cheap
calories of business success, and anyone who focuses exclusively on them
is only interested in using them; probably not the kind of investor
you'd want or benefit from.

> *Ryan Pandya*

>> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/diybio/CAL4ejvRFwn9FD39w1jjkhTs%3Dq%3D1Ev5kRUqA5rs3hXs0qMeYL7A%40mail.gmail.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer>
>> .

>>
>> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
>>
>

[Marc Juul]

On Fri, Jul 4, 2014 at 4:13 AM, Ryan Pandya <ryan....@gmail.com> wrote:

This sounds good to me -- tentatively. I would be willing to spend some time at the end of every day writing up a summary (and as you said, we do already do this internally, I would just take out the parts about company strategy/investor relations).

Which brings me to my other, and far bigger, point: Muufri is for-profit. We are, and we can't really budge on that. We think that the best way - frankly, the only way - to disrupt this industry is to do it as a business.

That's interesting. What do you think the advantage of a for-profit is here? Investor opportunities? I can understand that. It would probably be more challenging to go another route for scale-up, though partnering with existing companies could be one way. I am sure there are other more creative ways that this could be done.

 

The Real Vegan Cheese project seems to have a different focus entirely. If I understand correctly, you guys want people to be able to buy vegan cheese online and/or make it themselves. Which is awesome! But what I want is: short term, "real" vegan milk becomes available for people who aren't happy with soy/almond/whatever but avoid dairy for any number of reasons. Long-term, the milk you buy and the dairy you consume in processed foods, becomes vegan, because it uses "real vegan milk" on the back-end.

I want the same as you. I know that several from our team want that too. You will notice that nothing we have done precludes starting a for-profit to scale up this technology, or other people starting for-profits to do the same. It just does not grant any one company exclusivity. We are developing the technology in an open manner, but if you or anyone else wants to start a company using that open technology then go right ahead!

I personally really dislike the tendency of for-profits to eventually become controlled by profit motives through investor or shareholder interference or by being bought up by one of a few powerful megacorps, usually to the detriment of ethical, environmental or social concerns. I would much prefer to see people use our new tools of global collaboration to find creative ways around being controlled by the few and the powerful. Crowdfunding is one such tool, but it has its limits. New laws around micro-investments may be helpful. Getting business hackers and law hackers involved is probably necessary.

However, if you want to do a traditional for-profit, then I'm not stopping you. If we are to collaborate, I would ask you to commit to openness in a legally binding way such that future investors or owners suddenly decide to close everything down, as recently happened when Makerbot sold out to the incumbents.

 

I am also aware that you have to pick your battles, and the importance of getting this technology adopted as soon as possible may outweigh concerns over openness and transparency. This is somewhat reasonable given the amount of animal suffering and environmental damage it could alleviate. However, if getting fast mass adoption is the overruling priority, then wouldn't we all be better off if we made it 100% public domain and got some of the world's largest dairy corporations or companies experienced with large scale bioreactor manufacturing to use this technology? Certainly they have the resources and expertise to spin it up faster than anyone else. (I'm not _really_ arguing for this, just putting it out there).

In short, we want to get on shelves. Meaning: large-scale production, distribution, and being taken seriously by chain stores. Since this will require funding, it also means being taken seriously by investors.

I don't really agree that investors are a necessity. I think they are the easy and traditional way to go. I would encourage a holistic approach where we take into account that we probably don't want to live in a world where we have to worry about being taken seriously by a few powerful people who managed to claw their way to the top. I think we are smart enough, and together resourceful enough that we can come up with better ways of running the world. I understand that this is yet another thing that takes time away from focusing on the science and getting the product to market, but if we don't change the way the world is run then who will? We are the privileged few with the knowledge and power to make a difference, and we are capable enough that we can care about how we do things, not just getting them done.

 

Now, the main things I'm not sure about are: will investors require us to file patents? And, will we lose any investor appeal we may or may not have right now by sharing everything? What about sharing most things, but keeping a few innovations close to heart? (My guess is, that's a no-no from your perspective.)

I understand your concern. I am by no means an expert on business strategy and patents, but still I think you may be overvaluing the importance of patents for a small corporation. Yes, they have some appeal, but it is likely that anyone with enough money to throw at the problem will be able to compete by doing things just differently enough that they route around your patents, or if they already have a large patent portfolio they can simply find one or more of their patents that you are violating and force you to agree to their licensing terms.

I think it is more likely that a dedicated team with expertise, infrastructure, lots of community support from people who want to see the project succeed, and collaborators in the bay area will be seen as having value. If there are valuable patents to be had, they are probably not in the base technologies we are developing now, but rather in processes for optimizing high-volume production of high-quality product, which will come much later.

 

Anyway, those are my thoughts for now. I appreciate that you guys are staying up insanely late to talk about this - feel free to call it a night and we can pick this up later.

Cool. I was working on other stuff as well (we just moved our hackerspace into a new location). I'm just gonna call it an all-nighter and go get some breakfast :)

--

marc/juul

[John Griessen]

On 07/04/2014 05:47 AM, Marc Juul wrote:
> should all strive to document what we do so we build a global commons containing the sum-total of human knowledge, or at least the
> more important parts, and I think this counts.

Hear hear! Yes, and the effort and expense to patent-application/abandon to public domain is well
worth it to protect the effort of all involved to reach your goal. About promotion as Cathal
mentioned -- it is essential, and can deliver the money for patent-application fees.


On 07/04/2014 06:24 AM, Cathal Garvey wrote:> Any investor with remaining grey matter will be far more impressed if

> you can relate how much of a community following and how much
> prospective customer loyalty you have accrued. Patents are the cheap
> calories of business success, and anyone who focuses exclusively on them
> is only interested in using them; probably not the kind of investor
> you'd want or benefit from.
>
> On 04/07/14 12:13, Ryan Pandya wrote:

>> >In short, we want to get on shelves. Meaning: large-scale production,
>> >distribution, and being taken seriously by chain stores. Since this will
>> >require funding, it also means being taken seriously by investors.
>> >

>> >Now, the main things I'm not sure about are: will investors require us to
>> >file patents? And, will we lose any investor appeal we may or may not have
>> >right now by sharing everything? What about sharing most things, but
>> >keeping a few innovations close to heart? (My guess is, that's a no-no from
>> >your perspective.)

+1 about Cathal's stressing community and popularity.

I say go ahead and keep some trade secrets. It's possible to do that and not conflict
about the slightly focus of The Real Vegan Cheese project -- maybe even join up. You can always
release more of your methods later to build a bigger community of international
collaborators that replicate your products and development methods, plus add new ones.
You don't want to try filing patents defensively on every little thing...just the
big broad concepts. Especially since you are aiming at a mainstream market, (Kraft Foods, etc.),
you need to not act naive or the competition's large sales forces, many marketers,
spin doctor hired guns, and few/little technical developments
will blast you off the grocery shelves.

I also like Marc Juul's writing about reasons to have such a goal, and investors
being "the easy and traditional way to go". Investors will never share your highest goal,
since all they want is money/power.

[Patrik D'haeseleer]

I do have to agree with Cathal that all this talk about patenting *is* a distraction, and we should just get on with the biohacking. And in an ideal world, where Prior Art works the way it should, we should dump all this paranoia, get shit done, and paste it all over the interwebs.

The scenario where some other commercial entity could claim IP rights on the work we've done is a very real one though. Just have a look at how many groups are currently working on various forms of in-vitro meat, and who owns which patents around that. 

However, our best protection right now *is* to actually get the work done. Until we've proven "Reduction to Practice", none of these ideas are patentable anyway, no matter how well they've been worked out on paper.

It's also worth pointing out that we have a fairly large and heterogeneous group of people involved, and not surprisingly we have a range of viewpoints on this issue just within our own group. We've definitely had a few people say "you should totally do a startup around this, but you'll never get any investors if you don't protect your IP". And if we had more common sense / desire to get rich fast - yeah, that would probably be the way to do it. We've also had plenty of people take Cathal's stance of "fuck the patents, let's do some biohacking, and collaborate with anyone who is interested" - I'm more in that camp myself. 

By the way, it's not as if we've made a firm decision on going the "file and abandon" route. We've taken a straw poll on the matter, and more people approved of that solution than any of the others. But I expect it will be largely up to whomever feels most passionate about this (e.g. Marc) to actually put in the time and effort to go that route.

But for now - yeah, let's get the work done first, because without that we don't have squat anyway.

Patrik

[Yuriy Fazylov]

Please document this on video. I would like to see it. a lot of people would i think.