Slashdot Mirror
Removing Obstacles on Joint Research
Mark_Uplanguage writes "The New York Times is reporting that a conglomeration of 7 universities and 4 industry partners have agreed to open up software created out of industry funding. From the article: 'The tone was set, Ms. Mitchell said, by the Bayh-Dole Act of 1980, which allowed universities to hold the patents on federally funded research and to license that intellectual property to industry [...]The guidelines and framework for the agreement will [be] posted this week at www.ibm.com/university, and at the Kauffman foundation's site, www.kauffman.org.' It's nice to see people sharing again."
Here's a link to the story from Kauffman's Website.
The part that concerns me about this effort is the wording... "Specifically, the companies and universities agreed: * That intellectual property arising from selected research collaborations will be made available free of charge for commercial and academic use."
Its the idea that selected research will be available. Any research with *any* sort of monetary benefits will likely not fall under the scope of this program. So while this may perpetuate the research aspects of these IP's, its unlikely that industry will benefit, and thereby very unlikely that end consumers will see any benefit to this agreement.
> As I understand the situation (IANAL), one of the most important tests for "fair-use" of protected IP is whether profit is involved -- if you make a profit on someone else's IP, you can't claim fair-use.
That's not correct. Otherwise bootlegging would be perfectly legal, so long as you gave it away instead of selling it. And conversely, you wouldn't be able to sell a newspaper that quoted someone's book, even if proper attribution was given.
Beyond that, there's a sort of war on the fair use doctrine going on in the USA anyway, as part of the general shift in IP law that the *AA has been pursuing.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
> Can someone please explain to me any way in which this is not a big rip-off of the American taxpayer?
Someone mentioned the Kaufmann site. There is a link to a PDF called "Open Collaboration Principles" there, and though the wording is obtuse in several places, it sounds like it's actually a good deal. For example, the "be made available free of charge for commercial and academic use" is expanded to "be made available free of charge for commercial and academic use by any member of the public free of charge for use in open source software", and standards, etc.
I.e., they're just committing to release this stuff as FOSS.
There's some more verbiage about patents, which I think says that if the group contributing the code also owns relevant patents, the code can be used free of patent restrictions.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Actually, this could have some bearings upon something else: the SBIR/STTR programs put together by the National Science Foundation. IIRC, when granted, you own the rights to the technology whilst dealing with the gov't and keep the product when you're finished [as does the gov't]. The gov't creates a wish list of products, you follow the guidelines you've submitted, and wait to find out if you have won the grant [or not].
Grants, trademarks, etc. belong to the company performing the work but the gov't is granted permanent, free use.
Also, as a startup, you'd have your first product ready for market when you complete phase III. Some of the descriptions (although a bit lacking) attempt to state a civilian purpose for the product to encourage interest in the program. The SBIR is business-oriented and STTR is generally university|scholarly. There are enough states which do not do well in the SBIR that will go apesh%t to help you write your grant proposals to bring the money into that region.
There are also companies which will write your proposal and take a cut if|when you acquire the grant.
First, profit is only considered when determing damages. You can violate someone's copyright without earning a cent. Second, fair use only pertains to copyright law specifically, not patents. There really is no fair use of patents. If you violate a patent then you risk large sums of money in damages and there is really no excuse other than to try to invalidae the patent or prove you aren't violating it in the first place. You can't claim you violated it but only for research purposed.
If you grind overly fine, I think you'll find you either end up with a handrolled joint that leaks too much or a machine-rolled one that's too dense and doesn't draw well.
I'd keep it a little on the coarse side.
It has been pretended by some, (and in England especially) that inventors have a natural and exclusive right to their inventions, and not merely for their own lives, but inheritable to their heirs. But while it is a moot question whether the origin of any kind of property is derived from nature at all, it would be singular to admit a natural and even an hereditary right to inventors. It is agreed by those who have seriously considered the subject, that no individual has, of natural right, a separate property in an acre of land, for instance. By an universal law, indeed, whatever, whether fixed or movable, belongs to all men equally and in common, is the property for the moment of him who occupies it, but when he relinquishes the occupation, the property goes with it. Stable ownership is the gift of social law, and is given late in the progress of society. It' would be curious then, if an idea, the fugitive fermentation of an individual brain, could, of natural right, be claimed in exclusive and stable property. If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself ; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of every one, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it. Its peculiar character, too, is that no one possesses the less, because every other possesses the whole of it. He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine ; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. That ideas should freely spread from one to another over the globe, for the moral and mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his condition, seems to have been peculiarly and benevolently designed by nature, when she made them, like fire, expansible over all space, without lessening their density in any point, and like the air in which we breathe, move, and have our physical being, incapable of confinement or exclusive appropriation. Inventions then cannot, in nature, be a subject of property. Society may give an exclusive right to the profits arising from them, as an encouragement to men to pursue ideas which may produce utility, but this may or may not be done, according to the will and convenience of the society, without claim or complaint from anybody. Accordingly, it is a fact, as far as I am informed, that England was, until we copied her, the only country on earth which ever, by a general law, gave a legal right to the exclusive use of an idea. In some other countries it is sometimes done, in a great case, and by a special and personal act, but, generally speaking, other nations have thought that these monopolies produce more embarrassment than advantage to society; and it may be observed that the nations which refuse monopolies of invention, are as fruitful as England in new and useful devices. .
Considering the exclusive right to invention as given not of natural right, but for the benefit of society, I know well the difficulty of drawing a line between the things which are worth to the public the embarrassment of an exclusive patent, and those which are not. As a member of the patent board for several years, while the law authorized a board to grant or refuse patents, I saw with what slow progress a system of general rules could be matured. Some, however, were established by that board. One of these was, that a machine of which we were possessed, might be applied by every man to any use of which it is susceptible, and that this right ought not to be taken from him and given to a monopolist, because the first perhaps had occasion so to apply it. Thus a screw for crushing plaster might be employed for crushing corn-cobs. And a chain-pump for raising water might be used for raising wheat : this being merely a change of application. Another rule was that a change of material should riot give title to a patent. As the making a ploughshare of cast rather than of wrought iron ;
Rush Limbaugh is a perfect real world example of an oxycontinmoron