Intellectual Property in Synthetic Biology - Enacted Issues of Sharing and Owning |
2.3.1 Disclosing partisanship – Key Words and Key Actors
In trying to answer to what extent open source and patent-pro approaches in synthetic biology is infiltrated by different normative tropes we will now turn to 'word cloud visualizations'. Through searching different litterature and web pages we have come across lots of key words essentiel for understanding the "blend" of issues entangled in our issue space:
Key words used to generate word clouds: Innovation,God, Nature, Commons, Control, Freedom, Progress, Open source, Life, Intellectual Property, Exclusion, Knowledge, Share, Risk, Ethics, Public, Economic, Benefits, ELSI, Ownership, Synthetic biology, Environment, Health.
The frequency with which these words is used in the ownership regime and the sharing regime can tell us something about the discursive focal points which differentiate the regimes or link the regimes to a shared contested issue space. Using the word cloud generator at www.wordle.net we get these word clouds where the size of the words correspond to the frequency with which they are used in each issue space.
Key words used to generate word clouds: Innovation,God, Nature, Commons, Control, Freedom, Progress, Open source, Life, Intellectual Property, Exclusion, Knowledge, Share, Risk, Ethics, Public, Economic, Benefits, ELSI, Ownership, Synthetic biology, Environment, Health.
The frequency with which these words is used in the ownership regime and the sharing regime can tell us something about the discursive focal points which differentiate the regimes or link the regimes to a shared contested issue space. Using the word cloud generator at www.wordle.net we get these word clouds where the size of the words correspond to the frequency with which they are used in each issue space.
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Unsurprisingly Intellectual Property appears as the most dominant affinity in the ownership issue space. When we look closer at our starting points we see that the URLs containing many hits for intellectual property are the IP-blogs and BIO. These pages are not specifically limited to IP-questions in synthetic biology but are more broadly referring to questions on intellectual property rights in different technical and scientific areas.
A common discursive affinity in both issue spaces is the public. The general assumption in both issue spaces is that either regime is working for public interests. The public does not seem to be the contested issue. The contested issues seems to be "control", "innovation", "share", "economic", and "commons", which are dominant in one of the two regimes but not in both. We find it interesting that control is the most sizeable word in the sharing regime but it does not figure in the ownership regime. Control relates to the overall governance issue in synthetic biology.
It seems worth noticing that synthetic biology almost does not appear in the ownership word cloud while it is dominant in the sharing regime word cloud. In the ownership regime questions related to IP are not only touching upon synthetic biology which can explain why the term "synthetic biology" is not articulated as frequently. From this word cloud, we can see that the big question is not whether synthetic biology is a bad or risky science but whether the field should be controlled and how the public will benefit from progress within synthetic biology research and/or innovation.
Through surfing and crawling the web and reading literature on synthetic biology research, we have come across lots of key words essentiel for understanding the "blend" of actors entangled in our issue space (Where each actor represents a specific normative entanglement to the two different synbio IP-issue spaces):
Key Actors used to generate word clouds: Jason Bob, Arti Rai, James Boyle, John Sulston, Craig Venter, Berthold Rutz, Arjun Bhutkar, Joseph Stiglitz, Jane Calvert, Drew Endy, Stephen Maurer, BIOS, PLoS Biology, Clair Marris, Kevin E. Noonan, DIYBio, George Church, David Koepsell, Biobricks IPWatchdog, Chris Holman.
Key Actors used to generate word clouds: Jason Bob, Arti Rai, James Boyle, John Sulston, Craig Venter, Berthold Rutz, Arjun Bhutkar, Joseph Stiglitz, Jane Calvert, Drew Endy, Stephen Maurer, BIOS, PLoS Biology, Clair Marris, Kevin E. Noonan, DIYBio, George Church, David Koepsell, Biobricks IPWatchdog, Chris Holman.
2.3.6 Sharing regime key actor word cloud
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2.3.7 Ownership Regime key actor word cloud
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2.3.8 Which actors appear as shared by both network?
Craig Venter is by far the most articulated actor in both network and in the news related to synthetic biology. Craig Venter and his team at the Institute for Genomic Research captured a prominent position in synthetic biology after being the first to sequence the human genome and later the first to create synthetic "life" (a much contested word). Before completing the human sequence in 2007 Craig Venter (through the commercial company Synthetic Genomics) filed patents on different methods, techniques and gene sequences, which brought the debate about IP-questions concerning patenting on life to a broader public (see article in The Economist 2010 "And Man Made life"). Craig Venter is without a doubt a very prominent actor in the controversy around IP in synthetic biology but he is also very often used as "the prime contested example" on the limits on sharing and owning in synthetic biology.
2.3.9 Which actors are unique for each regime?
In trying to map the discursive affinity in each network we will have to look at other actors than Craig Venter. In doing this we see some clear patterns of partisanship in each network. The next biggest actor in sharing regime is the open source organisation Biobricks which is also a central actor in the co-link network. Biobricks does not appear as a noticeable actor in the ownership regime, where the IP blog IPWatchdog appears to be a central actor.
Using the dorlings we are able to reveal more details than the wordles can. If you take "Nature" as an example. You can see that "Nature" has been mentioned 5713 times in the Ownership Regime and 7787 times by the sharing regime but in the wordles "Nature" figures as more important in the sharing regime. When comparing word clouds for the two regimes the immediate findings can be distorted by the appearance of key words with a high frequency (like that of "Intellectual Property" occuring 22732 times).
2.4 Summary of the comparative analysis
To sum up this comparative analysis we are dealing with an array of actors showing different degrees of partisanship through articulations of certain issues and actors. Even though we had some trouble finding the ownership network, which is not as demarcated and articulated as the sharing network, what we found what we consider clear indications of a division between two different and opposing socio-epistemic networks.
The Sharing regime:
- Mainly consists of organisations
- Is centered around issues in synthetic biology (IP is secondary).
- Are very visible in the public synbio IP-controversy
- Are mostly concerned with questions on how to control synthetic biology so the public will benefit the most from it.
The Ownership regime:
- Mainly consists of bloggers and corporations dealing with synthetic biology.
- Is centered around issues on IP (synthetic biology is secondary).
- Are much more esoteric and difficult to demarcate.
- As the central linking point between these two spheres we have the Biotechnology Industry Organisation.
The synbio IP-issue spaces are contested and what happens in the future regarding the practical application of or patenting of synthetic biology is likely to be debated and articulated in various ways by the actors we have mapped out in this small study. As Dr Jane Calvert, University of Edinburgh, sums up: "some synthetic biologist think that rather than moving towards a diverse ecology where we will have different types of IP (…), we are moving towards a tipping point where the field will either remain open or it will be locked up and primarily appropriated” (Calvert 2010:"Ownership, Sharing and Community-Building in Synthetic Biology" www.youtube.com). This stilll have not happend, but the decisions taken in the future can make the synbio IP-issue spaces tip.