Scientific activism and intellectual property: how UK-based agroecologists and plant synthetic biologists have challenged the status quo

This chapter concerns plant breeders at the Organic Research Centre and synthetic biologists based in Cambridge and Norwich developing the OpenPlant project. Despite their differences, both groups directly intervened in intellectual property norms concerning their practices. The Organic Research Centre won an exemption from intellectual property laws governing its seeds from the European Commission, allowing it to sell a variety which would not otherwise have been protected. OpenPlant developed its own version of a material transfer agreement. This chapter documents these efforts and unpacks their significance in light of the longer history of intellectual property in plants and biological science.