The trials and tribulations of an open source medical device

Dear All,

First of all, my apologies if this is a redundant or
oft-trod topic,
or if this is the inappropriate list --  I joined the
Creative Commons
community only today.  To make a long story short, some
colleagues and
I have launched a project to make an open-source medical
device,
namely a brain stimulator appropriate for treating
depression:
    
http://transcenmentalism.org/OpenStim/tiki-index.php

Progress has occurred rapidly, with a systems design in
place, and
mathematical models and hardware designs for two of the six
components.  We hope to have a full design ready within a
few weeks.
We are hoping to release all this information under a
Creative Commons
License.  Furthermore, we are hoping to build a community of
people
who will trade protocols and exchange information freely.

One worry, though, is that nothing prevents someone from
simply taking
all this content, and submitting a patent or patents on it. 
This is
potentially a very lucrative field (one of the applications
is
essentially a side-effect free substitute for Prozac), and
our hope
was to build a community of researchers and clinicians, as
opposed to
providing the means for someone else to simply walk in and
create a
monopoly.  Any thoughts on this front?  Are the goals of
this project
mutually inconsistent?

Any and all thoughts are welcome.

Best,
Ed

-- 
Edward S. Boyden, Ph. D.
eboyden3gmail.com
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Ed Boyden wrote:
>  One worry, though, is that nothing prevents someone
from simply
>  taking all this content, and submitting a patent or
patents on it.

Actually, the fact of publishing the information in a
publically
accessible site, is establishment of a prior art claim. The
whole
point of a patent is that it has to be a new idea, so if you
can
prove that the idea was out there before the patent was
filed,
the patent is invalidated.  This is at least true under US
law,
and I believe other countries have similar standards.

Of course, there's a lot of concern that the system is not
actually
set up to prevent invalid patents from being filed, or even
granted.  It might occur that a patent is filed, and you
have to
prove that it is invalid in an actual infringement case.

Openly publishing the design puts a lot of weight behind
your prior art claim, though, should such a patent be filed.
So you're actually *better* defended against patents
legally,
if you follow open source conventions.

(Of course, IANAL, and all that...)

Cheers,
Terry

-- 
Terry Hancock (hancockAnansiSpaceworks.com)
Anansi Spaceworks http://www.AnansiSpac
eworks.com

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