An Australian organisation hopes to give scientists free access to the latest methods in biotechnology via the internet. The Biological Innovation for Open Society (‘BIOS’) will soon launch an open-source platform that promises to free up rights to patented DNA sequences and the methods needed to manipulate biological material. Users must only follow BIOS’ ‘rules of engagement’, which are similar to those used by the open-source software community.

“There are technologies you need to innovate and then there are the innovations themselves,” said Richard Jefferson, founder and director of BIOS in Canberra, Australia. “But those can only happen when there is fair access to the technologies.”

Stockpiling medical patents in the name of free access to science is all well and good, but I think we’ll need to see real reforms to the patent system if organisations like BIOS and Science Commons are to have any chance against the likes of Monsanto.