more on In Defense of University Patent Licensing (04.23.2003)

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

------ Forwarded Message
From: "David P. Reed" <dpreed () reed com>
Date: Wed, 23 Apr 2003 08:53:17 -0400
To: dave () farber net, ip <ip () v2 listbox com>
Subject: Re: [IP] In Defense of University Patent Licensing (04.23.2003)

One thing worth considering in this debate is that government funded
research was the rationale for Bayh-Dole, yet today the research is more
and more corporate-funded, as the government does less and less.   The
issue is not Bayh-Dole, per se.   The real problem is that basic research
(which is difficult to productize) is being distorted by the desire to
create "fundable units" that can be owned by corporations and exploited
directly and immediately.

One of the impacts is that since most corporations (there are wise folks in
some corporations, thank goodnees) see patents as the only measurable
outcome that they can justify to their investors, there is great pressure
to make basic science patentable, in order to allow basic research to
compete for corporate funds.

It takes little imagination to see that quantum electrodynamics and
information theory, algorithmic complexity theory and cryptography, and
systems design principles are not easily turned into exclusive intellectual
property without destroying most or all of the economic goods therein.

The dangerous thing is not what BU does with its patents.   The dangerous
thing is that BU's management thinks its research agenda ought to be
organized around "knowledge as property".

In other words, the problem is the shift from thinking of knowledge as it
has always been (a collective human enterprise), to thinking of all
knowledge as "intellectual property".   This is a completely bankrupt and
intellectually indefensible idea, about as intelligent as thinking that we
could best manage our water resources by declaring each bucketful of rain
as the "property" of the person whose land it happened to fall on.  (if
this last idea sounds even slightly reasonable, I'd suggest that you have
already been brainwashed, and might want to think why you think that way).


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