[cc-community] The trials and tribulations of an open source medical device
Ed Boyden
eboyden3 at gmail.com
Wed Sep 20 16:23:25 EDT 2006
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.
eboyden3 at gmail.com
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