Ownership of Knowledge/Profit Motive

When it comes to this subject, I always think of Jonas Salk basically saving the world with the Polio vaccine:

When news of the vaccine's success was made public on April 12, 1955, Salk was hailed as a "miracle worker", and the day "almost became a national holiday." His sole focus had been to develop a safe and effective vaccine as rapidly as possible, with no interest in personal profit. When he was asked in a televised interview who owned the patent to the vaccine, Salk replied: "There is no patent. Could you patent the sun?"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonas_Salk

 

I think of Tesla.

And J.P Morgan saying "how can I make money off of you giving everyone electricity for free?"

sigh.

 

side answer:

Knowledge becomes public domain as soon as you submit the patent application, and you'll find it here: http://www.uspto.gov/

for the next 20 years, nobody else is allowed to use that knowledge in a commercial application except for you, and you're allowed to corner the market. usually, it takes 3 years for a patent to go from submitted to approved and issued, so that's where the 17 years you cited comes from.


main question:

I don't think the desire for knowledge would decrease, but the ability to pursue would. R&D usually needs a **** load of capital, and whoever's going to give it to you is going to want it back. academics are too poor to fund their own research.

now, if you knew the cure for AIDS and tried to keep it as a trade secret like the coke formula, THAT would be messed up.

 

I think of Alexander Graham Bell and Thomas Edison and how we all use telephones and light bulbs, even though they were patented. There is room for both public and private research. If money motivates you to do great things, fine. If you are doing it to help humanity, also fine. I don't think we should co-opt the work of geniuses because we don't want to pay for it.

 

Here is a great video which could answer your question:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Its about ten minutes, its about the science behind monetary rewards. Cant embed right now, will try to do it later.

 

Your poem doesn't rhyme.

 

sneeker

 

At the moment "academics" are predominantly funded by the US government, but then "profitized" by corporations.

And yes, I'd like that money back goddamit.

 

Patents are fine but in some areas of business it's gotten out of control. For example, look at software patents. Some guy invents a piece of software and then claims that this piece of software does all sorts of things that it doesnt do. In fact if you analyze software patents, basic things such as hyperlinks, pop ups, basic software algorithims etc.. are all simultaneously patented by hundreds of people.

And what is happening is that unscrupulous businesses are buying up these absurd patents and then suing all kinds of businesses claiming a violation. And many of these small startups simply don't have the money to invest in a lawsuit so they fork over unnecessary royalties. This is happening so often that larger companies (Yahoo, Amazon, Google, etc..) are all buying up their own army of bull**** patents so they can countersue whoever sues them.

And in the end innovation dies because patent lawsuits are out of control in the tech industry. Also you can thank a certain Republican federal court that ruled against the US patent office that software can be patented. (Before that software was treated like books meaning it could be copyrighted but not patented)

In short, patent rules fail miserably sometimes and counter innovation and intellectual freedom.