Bioperl: Open Source and Bio questions

[Clay Shirky]

I write and speak about Open Source and network economics, (my
writings are collected at http://www.shirky.com/) and recently I have
been following the revolution in biology as information science.

I have a question about the nature of the open source vs proprietary
competition in the genomics world: I have seen a variety of
conflicting claims about the sort of genomic patents Celera is
filing. Is Ventner:

a) patenting the sequence of a particular gene, so that anyone who
   wants to work with that gene must license it?
b) patenting only biological methods that interoperate with that gene?
c) patenting SNP's of that gene, but leaving the wild type allelle in
   the public domain? or
d) only patenting tools for working with the related genetic material
   and patenting nothing of the sequence itself?

(I have seen all four claims made in different forums.)

Thanks very much,

-clay

--
Clay Shirky
Professor, New Media
Department of Film & Media
Hunter College
http://www.shirky.com/
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