Tim Hubbard, then head of sequence analysis at Sanger, explored the possibility of using a “copyleft” agreement developed by the free software movement to protect the public project’s human genome data. Such an agreement would have provided a formal legal meaning to the Bermuda principle of open access, specifying that all were free to use HGP genome data but could place no restrictions (or example, patents) on its further development. The Wellcome Trust devoted serious resources into developing this idea. John Stewart, its head of legal matters, even created a draft license agreement.
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