Should I patent my cultivated meat method?

I know the author personally, and I want to signal that Michelle is genuinely interested in doing good, that the proposed technology does seem highly promising, and that an informed take on this question would help her make a better decision. 

Thanks for anyone experienced with the subject matter who is willing to help here!

My half baked view would be that you should try to raise philanthropic funding to scale the technology and keep it open source, but if you can’t then you should patent it to enable you to raise private capital to scale it?

Thank you for asking.

Congrats on having invented something exciting!

Usually, the best way to get innovative new technology into the hands of beneficiaries quickly is to get a for-profit company to invest with a promise of making money. This can happen via licensing a patent to an existing manufacturer, or creating a whole startup company and raising venture capital, etc.

One of the things such investors want to see is a 'moat': something that this company can do that no other company can easily copy. A patent/exclusive license is a good way to create a moat.

There are some domains like software where simply publishing 'open source' ideas causes those ideas to get used, but for most domains including manufacturing, my default expectation is that new tech is not used unless someone can make money off it. Pharma is a great example - there are tons of vaccines and niche treatments that we don't have manufacturing for, even though we know how, because nobody can make enough money doing it.

I'd be really interested to hear whether you are considering seeing this idea through yourself? It sounds like you're doing a Ph.D; but if you would consider dropping out to work on this as a startup, then I think doing so would be one of the best ways to maximize this idea's chances for success. (In large part because your brain probably contains tons of highly relevant info for making this product work at scale!)

You wrote: "most scientists do patent and keep everything secret within companies" -- but I wonder if this indicates confusion, since usually patents don't keep things secret, they are published. Patents just allow their owner a legal monopoly on technology for a limited time.

Can you get introduced to any food-manufacturing people (ideally folks at bigger companies, in charge of finding + investing in new food products), who you can talk to about your idea, even just to get advice? Or, founders of similar food tech companies who came up with a good idea and had to decide whether to patent it?

I would recommend patenting, but then committing to donate part of the profits. That has been my strategy.

If you don't patent, how high is the risk that someone else will try to patent your method and patent troll over it? 

This has historically been the reason that (non-patent troll) software tech companies in the past have claimed for patenting; I don't have a good sense of how common that is.

I don’t have an answer, but would suggest you talk to the folks at the Good Food Institute if you haven’t already — they might have advice, or at the very least be able to point you towards other people you could ask about this.

Your Tech Transfer office is a member of AUTM.  AUTM encourages licenses that include altruistic clauses.  For example, the license could waive royalties for sales in third world countries when the licensee is selling at cost.

  Such a deal allows the licensee to make a profit on first world sales to recover development costs and also recognize the altruistic value.  Most inventions require development money and if open sourced they die from lack of funding.

I forwarded your question to an EA-aligned Stanford Law School professor who has worked in the startup space. Here is what he said (tl;dr he thinks you should patent it):

[A] patent & startup is an excellent way to protect & scale the technology. If the tech is in the public domain, it might actually deter a larger company from developing/using it because they'll fear a competitor will use the tech and undercut their price. 
 

The best path would likely be to patent it and then either license it to a large company or spin out a startup. If the PhD is a "scientist" type (and has no desire to be a businessperson / operator) then she might need to find co-founders to assist.

I'd be happy to pass along his contact info via DM if you want to discuss further (he is happy to chat with you). Congrats on the cool tech!

I am not super certain but I would strongly advise to patent it. Here is my thinking:

• You can't put the toothpaste back in the tube. Patenting it now will give you options. You should, I hope, be able to release the patent later. Not patenting it now means you might not be able to patent later. You get a lot of option value from patenting now.
• Not sure how true the story is, but apparently GM bought some EV patent or company and shelved it as it was seen as a threat to their ICE vehicles. I can imagine well the meat industry pulling something similar with alternative proteins. I think and hope patenting the tech gives you some protection against a scenario like this.
• If you want to reach scale, you want to tap into private capital. Investors are much more likely to invest in helping you scale if you have patent protection. Sure, many investors will get rich and buy fancy cars if you reach scale, but you will also potentially do a lot more good than those bads. If you are really lucky, you can choose value aligned investors who might themselves donate philanthropically so minimizing the downside from going down the private path. I lean pretty far away from the profit motive myself, but it has been mind blowing in renewable energy to witness what private capital can do in scaling products.

This is a tough question, and I don't really know the first thing about patents, so you probably should not listen to me.

My not very meditated first instinct is that one would set up a licensing scheme so that you commit to granting a use license to any manufacturer in exchange for a fee, preferrably as a portion of the revenue to incentivize experimentation from entrepreneurs.

Of course, this might dissuade the Tech Transfer office or other entrepreneurs from investing in a start-up if they won't be guaranteed exclusive use.

I suppose that it would be relevant to investigate how succesful the Tech Transfer office has been in launching startups in the past, what types of permissive licenses they would be amenable to, and whether you know some other entrepreneurs or accelerators who would be keen to commercialize the idea (and what types of licenses they would consider working with).

In any case, good luck with the effort - this could be a very exciting opportunity!

Oh man, tough situation, and also congrats and this sounds awesome and admiration that you're thinking about this question.

As other commenters, I don't know the first thing about patents. Have you talked to a lawyer, including to figure out whether you can patent in a way that doesn't involve the Tech Transfer office (so much)?

If you don't patent an invention, someone else can instead. So you should definitely get it patented, if only to put a very open license on it.