• A genetically-engineered Streptococcus strain developed by Jeffrey D. Hillman (U. Florida) that out-competes cavity-causing S. mutans was highlighted, with links to the 2002 paper and the commercial probiotic Probiora3, sparking discussion on DIY mouth-flora engineering.

• DIY biology resources shared included the Carolina Biological “Green Gene Colony Transformation Kit” for GFP transfection and Harvard’s FUNC database for browsing quantitative gene-function predictions.

• A deep dive into open-source hardware patent strategy covered defensive patent pools, the Orphan Drug Act’s lower evidence bar for rare-disease treatments, and the Lipitor case as a model of startup-to-big-pharma IP transfer.

• Participants analyzed Creative Commons patent tools (Non-Assertion Pledge, Model Patent License) and the economics of U.S. patent litigation (≈ $1 M ante), while brainstorming “patent havens” like China and exploring loopholes such as foreign-flag vessel exemptions under 35 U.S.C.

• Ethical and regulatory mismatches were debated: 18th-century patent law and bioethics panels (e.g., the July 2010 President’s Council on Bioethics meeting on synthetic biology) were seen as ill-suited to 21st-century AI-designed nanomedicine, potentially delaying life-saving innovations.

• Monsanto’s aggressive enforcement—suing seed-cleaning businesses for “contributory patent infringement”—was cited as a cautionary tale for open-source bio-hardware developers.

• Technical side-talk included a high-volume auction-site scheduler discussion, with recommendations ranging from cron to custom priority-heap queues using libevent for efficient event-driven I/O.