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NASA Patents To Be Auctioned
Presto Vivace writes to tell us that as a continuing push to commercialize NASA-funded technology a group of 25 NASA patents will be auctioned off this coming October. "The sale, which will include rights to signal processing, GPS for spacecraft and sensor technologies, is the first auction under a partnership announced earlier this month between Goddard's Innovative Partnerships Program (IPP) and Ocean Tomo Federal Services LLC. Ocean Tomo provides a marketplace for intellectual property, which NASA wants to leverage in commercializing its technology."
Those patents belong to the American people!
The results of taxpayer-funded research need to be made freely available, not sold to the highest bidder.
If my tax dollars paid for the research and development that has lead to a patent, then that patent should remain in the hands of the government, not sold to the highest bidder.
If these patents are so valuable that someone is willing to buy them (and theoretically license them), then NASA should be licensing the patents themselves. Sounds like a better long-term supplemental funding solution to me. Several other agencies have fee and license structures (FCC, FDA) that helps supplement their annual Congressional appropriations. Why not NASA as well?
I'm out of my mind right now, but feel free to leave a message.....
NASA is a government agency, it is funded by taxpayers money. All research by NASA and patents they own should be in the public domain, it belong to the people.
They cant just auction them away. The work was made by a government agency, so it belongs to the people!
TFA didn't really get into detail, but does this mean:
1. Taxpayers fund research,
2. Government patents results,
3. Government sells patents to private concern,
4. Taxpayer gets to pay for research again via the consumer channel,
5. Private concern profits?
Seems like another form of corporate welfare to me. Is this the case?
For copyrightable material, "Works created by an agency of the United States government are public domain at the moment of creation."
But here, for patentable material, it's clear that that is not the case. The theory goes that since the taxpayer paid for it, the taxpayer should get the rights to it. It's essentially always the case that the inventors will "assign" the work to the organization... but should NASA really be able to hold a competitive IP position when we're all forced to pay for its work?
Think of the private spaceflight organizations, for example, who might want to enter similar fields. They're already being forced to pay for NASA's research (via taxes), but they're being excluded from the result, while the opposite (NASA forced to pay for private company XYZ's research without a return of IP) is not happening.
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Gee, we paid for these patents. The end result of this will be higher prices when consumers end up using the results of this technology.
If they wanted to promote technology, they should put these in the public domain; but instead they've opted to make some more money by screwing the people who provided the funding in the first place.
This is also what Universities have been doing with public money and the patents they come up there, over the last 20 years. Which has lead, IMO, to less innovation (and a few richer professors). So, while NASA isn't alone here, the entire US government has plunged headfirst into doing their best to stifle innovation, and worsening the common good, all in the name of a few quick bucks.
If today's stock market action is any indication, this whole steaming mess is about to come crashing down. But with NASA and the Universities approach, it will stay down for quite a while.
When will they get it that the economy is better off by increasing innovation, rather than hindering it?
Thank G*d we still have OSS left.
It's bad enough that NASA patents its inventions at all. But perhaps it's occasionally necessary, to prevent dangerous tech from getting into private hands. And maybe if the patents were awarded to American holders strategically to "promote progress in science and the useful arts", which is the only basis patents have, from the Constitution, they might be worth their infringements on free communication and further innovation.
But those inventions were paid for by the entire American public, as directed under the government elected by the public to serve the entire public. Simply turning them over to private corps for a little money doesn't justify the public investment.
It's just another subsidy forced on the entire public on some special preference for some private corporation. I thought Republicans hated that kind of thing.
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They claim they want to sell the patents so that the technology is available for American businesses? Wouldn't the best way to do that be to not patent them at all in the first place? Or at least liscense the patents cheaply to any and all interested American businesses?
We already paid for the research once, now we'll end up paying for it again when some company begins gouging prices because they hold the patent and no one else can compete.
by liscencing them?
Correct me if im wrong but since when did NASA fund its own research instead of receiving enormous sums of money from the taxpayers? From where i stand this does look like NASA wants to cash in twice. US taxpayers have already paid for the patents once.
These patents should be free to use for Americans but by all means use them competitively against the rest of us.
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Pardon my unamerican ignorance, but what is NASA exactly ? If they are a government operation, shouldn't these patents be delivered to the public domain ? After all, they are the fruits of tax dollars.
Maybe I have a weird, overly accurate definition of democracy, but it seems as though government property should be considered public property... but hey, don't mind me and my commonwealth mindset. I'm just a cocky Canadian after all.
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Your cut is a wealthier NASA.
Is that like how the FCC auctioning off the public airwaves to the same telco cartel makes us a wealthier FCC?