What concerns me is that the patent troll mindset has filtered down from the usual big players to the little guys who are starting out. I think if you've done something unique like come up with a cure for cancer you deserve a patent, but on the other hand so many patents seem just a bit too vague.
Unless the public money came with a string that says, "no patents" then its fair game (its not unusual for the university, for example, to have first right at patents if done there). Everything is done partially on public money. You use public money to drive the paved roads. Public money to build and research the foundation of the web. Public money to have police and a judicial system so people don't simply take your ideal completely with no attribution. Public money that funded prior cancer research that you read.
>Unless the public money came with a string that says, "no patents" then its fair game (its not unusual for the university, for example, to have first right at patents if done there).
that just shows wide-spread mismanagement of public money. At all the private companies i've worked, i signed the document that all my patents done on the company's dime, are to belong to the company.
>You use public money to drive the paved roads.
And thus the contractor-builder of the road can't charge the toll on the road (well, except for the cases when he got a sweet deal what normal people would consider mismanagement of public funds )
that just shows wide-spread mismanagement of public money. At all the private companies i've worked, i signed the document that all my patents done on the company's dime, are to belong to the company
But private companies are very different than governments. Private companies generally want to make sure that no one else has this IP, but themselves.
A government, at least a capitalist one, is generally happy that you're incentivized to invent and create patents. Although they may want to also have use for themself, but it needn't be exclusive (like your employers desire).
In US we have the Bayh-Dole Act which gives you ownership of your invention, but of course, the US has a "non-exclusive, non-transferable, irrevocable, paid-up license to practice or have practiced on its behalf throughout the world".
I don't understand how you can consider that mismanagement of public funds. It seems to satisfy both the capitalist angle and the greater good.
And to be clear this only applies if you take direct funding from the government, typically in the form of a grant, where you sign a specific agreement. Using public goods, such as the roads, street lights, food inspection, don't impose any obligation on your part -- except taxation.
>I don't understand how you can consider that mismanagement of public funds. It seems to satisfy both the capitalist angle and the greater good.
As a shareholder(taxpayer) of this corporation(government) i think it is a mismanagement of the funds to allow for the uncompensated re-assignment of the rights to the direct products of the direct investments done by the corporation. You think it is not. Difference of opinions. As in the example i mentioned before - when contractor/builder gets full rights for the toll on the road he merely built and when he was paid in full for the work - i'd see this as mismanagement, and you'd see this as the capitalist angle and the greater good. Difference of opinions.
