a beastie feces

subar%mwcamis@MITRE.ARPA (10/29/87)

--------
     
     
In the posting from EDU%"agent99!nickyt@EDDIE.MIT.EDU" (NickyT), he raises
the following questions:
     
>  If you could design such a system, how would you make it work?
>  What sorts of stuff would you build/grow?  What kinds of atoms
>  and molecules would you use in your structures?  How would the
>  nutrients be circulated?  How would you deal with the inevitable
>  waste products?  How would you supply energy to the nano-machinery?
     
I heard another issue raised at a recent Science, Technology, Engineering,
and Public Policy (STEPP) meeting.  If the nano-machinery was some kind of
organism, as NickyT suggests,
     
>  The kinds of nanocomputers that might be produced in living cells ...
     
and the cells are sold to a different concern than the one that fabricated
them, and those cells reproduced when it captivity of their new owner, who
owns the new cells?  What if the little beasties where only leased?  If
the leasee owned the baby beasties, can he then sell them and compete
with the leasor?  As I understand it, there are no legal precedents here
(There was a patent lawyer at the STEPP meeting.)  What do you think?
     
David Subar

bzs@BU-CS.BU.EDU (Barry Shein) (10/31/87)

>and the cells are sold to a different concern than the one that fabricated
>them, and those cells reproduced when it captivity of their new owner, who
>owns the new cells?  What if the little beasties where only leased?  If
>the leasee owned the baby beasties, can he then sell them and compete
>with the leasor?  As I understand it, there are no legal precedents here
>(There was a patent lawyer at the STEPP meeting.)  What do you think?
>     
>David Subar

I believe I posted a review of an article (from Scientific American if
I remember right) around a year ago to this list about how one of the
Swiss bio-engineering firms was signing their bio-engineered
organisms. Basically they attached a non-functioning allele (is that
the right word?) with a genetic pattern they had copyrighted (I think
in one company's case it actually had a pattern with their initials,
at least roughly.) A genetic signature as it were.

The idea was that it should be detectable if sold by another concern.

Wierd.

	-Barry Shein, Boston University