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."

Comments

Great!

[BitterOldGUy]

The HHT technology is a highly efficient, adaptive and user-friendly set of algorithms for analyzing time-varying processes, designed specifically for nonlinear and nonstationary signals.

Finally a version that can be used in the home! I'll see if my grandma needs this.

Auctioned off?

[Anonymous Coward]

Those patents belong to the American people!

Great, we get to pay for them again!

[Eric Smith]

As a US taxpayer, I already funded the research that led to these patents. Now they'll sell them off, which superficially sounds like a good thing. But the reality is that it means that I get to pay for them again. The companies buying the patents aren't ultimately the ones paying, it's those of us that buy products from those companies.

The results of taxpayer-funded research need to be made freely available, not sold to the highest bidder.

Re:Great, we get to pay for them again!

[morikahnx]

Maybe NASA is planning on paying us back?

Re:Great, we get to pay for them again!

[BitterOldGUy]

Ah. So the American Corp who would get these patents (by lottery or by political connections), saving money on R&D, can now pass the savings on to the CEO in terms of even higher salary and perks. He earned it after all by saving the company millions of dollars in R&D costs.

In the meantime, NASA doesn't get to recover the costs that they spent (our tax dollars) and therefore has to beg Congress for more money. Congress, on the other hand, has things they would rather spend money on: wars, pork barrel spending, things that buy votes from joe sixpack who doesn't give a rat's ass about space - space science is one of those "elitist" pursuits, bridges to no-where, tax breaks to big oil, tax breaks to big corps who've lobbied for them, their own increasing salaries and perks, etc....

Sorry, I didn't mean to sound bitter.

Re:Great, we get to pay for them again!

[msauve]

"Maybe NASA is planning on paying us back?"

Free Tang for everyone!

Re:Great, we get to pay for them again!

[CodeBuster]

But the reality is that it means that I get to pay for them again.

Suppose instead that you were the sole owner of the patents, but for some reason (you choose) you didn't want to spend money to develop and market products based upon the patents, even though you might personally be interested in buying whatever products are ultimately produced using the patents. Would you not be happy with a cash settlement from the sale of your patents? Presumably you could still purchase whatever products came out of the patents and enjoy them while paying a small share of what the patent buyer paid you (in the form of a higher product price) in exchange for a product that you want. How is this not a good deal?

Now, in theory it would be better if all of us taxpayers saw some "return" on our investment in the form of lower taxes going forward based upon the proceeds of a successful sale of patents generated from publicly funded research. However, in practice any proceeds will probably go to NASA and not be returned to the US Treasury so in that sense the US taxpayer is getting a bit of the shaft. On the other hand, maybe some useful products, which wouldn't otherwise be available to the public, will come of this so it may not all be bad.

If the patents were made freely available then other countries and foreign companies could free-ride and enjoy the fruits of our research efforts without reimbursing us for any of the costs that we have already paid for the research. How would that make you feel? Perhaps you prefer that nobody earns any profit, even though your tax dollars are already a sunk cost either way, just to spite the winning bidders? Either way you still paid for the research and got no direct return.

Re:Great, we get to pay for them again!

[reebmmm]

Let me just add: nothing is being sold. Each of the lots is "an exclusive license" and not an actual assignment. Presumably, the exclusive license will have development and commercialization requirements--just like any other federally funded patent license agreement. Typically, the point is to bring the technology to market. Obviously, NASA doesn't think it's doing a good job of that right now.

Also, you have a very messed up idea of how government works. Things that happen with your tax monies aren't freely available to you. If a pig farmer gets a subsidy, you can't go take a pig.

Re:Great, we get to pay for them again!

[Eric Smith]

No, I get to pay more every time I buy products using the patented technology. When I paid the taxes to fund NASA, it was most certainly NOT with the intention or stated purpose that they would develop things to sell to me.

Re:Great, we get to pay for them again!

[Eric Smith]

Whether it's an exclusive license or a sale, the result is the same. I get to pay for the research again and again.

Your example with the pig is exactly why the government shouldn't be giving out subsidies. I am unable to identify which of the Powers of Congress enumerated in Article I Section 8 of the US Constitution includes the power to grant subsidies to private entities.

Re:Great, we get to pay for them again!

[onionlee]

I think your basic assumption is incorrect. Rather than saving on R&D, the company will be forced to make a better cheaper product. If the research was made freely available, no single company has a monopoly on the technology. This of course will increase competition, in the end bringing back our well spent tax money. Imagine if mp3 players still were held under a single patent (see: http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/09/08/1343248 ) No iPod D: and no Zune (>_> then again, that could be a good thing...)

Re:Great, we get to pay for them again!

[evilklown]

I would like to be the first to suggest a class action lawsuit against both the government and the highest bidder. I wish not to recoup any money but, as previously mentioned, I would like these breakthroughs (made possible by tax-funded research) to be freely available to any citizen of the United States. I think it's time we, the taxpayers, set a precedence for publicly funded research to be publicly available.

Hell No!

[Dynedain]

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?

Re:Hell No!

[Adambomb]

Why not NASA as well?

Easy answer with a question: Why would they set up a licensing setup (with all the overhead and fun as their investment) when the government can instead get the big boost from the initial sale and then tax both the sale itself, the revenue of the company, and the sales of the consumer? This would then shunt any overhead of profiting off the patent to the winning bidder as well.

Granted, the answer only makes sense when it goes with the assumption that it can be spun such that your objection doesn't become the 51%+ demographic as you're exactly right that this is complete bull.

"Socialize losses, privatize gains" variation?

[hirschma]

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?

Strange disparity between patents and copyrights

[compumike]

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.

--
Hey code monkey... learn electronics! Powerful microcontroller kits for the digital generation.

The Public Owns That Stuff

[Doc Ruby]

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.

The Best Way?

[MozeeToby]

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.

Only you can prevent orbital bombardment.

[mrmeval]

The only way they could possibly pay me back is to go back to the moon and deliver several thousand payloads of rock to DC. That should cover any debt they owe me nicely.

I had the same reaction

[Presto Vivace]

this is our property.

What is NASA anyway ?

[billcopc]

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.

I Smell A Rat

[mpapet]

Question: HOW does it come to pass that the contractor was awarded this?

James E. Malackowski (CEO of the auction firm) is very well connected in government. He sits on the board of the non-profit running invent.org, whose main sponsor is the USPTO.

His campaign contribution record is decidedly democratic, but the contribution to Henry Hyde's reelection campaign is interesting.

Is this the proverbial "Smoking Gun?" No. But probably a case of paying into the system to stay inside the beltway on these issues and pick up a contract along the way.

What I didn't do was see if this was your average "no-bid" private contract for cronies and whether the dollar amount would qualify the matter as a violation in the contracting process. Please contribute!

We own NASA

[kwerle]

Your cut is a wealthier NASA.

Re:We own NASA

[hey!]

Not really. NASA is not run as a profit center, so this doesn't add a nickel to its budget. If you want to know where the money is going, you've got to look at the budget busters for current spending: the Iraq war, federal highway spending, flood insurance, that sort of thing.

This is just a kind of LBO style ideological stunt. When the constituent assets of a company are seen as more valuable than the company, you start selling them off.

What is worse, by selling the patent, the government in effect competes with other inventors. If the government beats an private inventor to the punch, he is not only deprived of the patent, he is unable to use the invention, unless the government chooses to license the patent as widely as possible. In that case, any work he does around that invention is not only usable, it may result in new inventions. So government inventions benefit everybody working in the field, until they are sold. At that point they benefit the highest bidder exclusively. And that's what this is about: turning public property to somebody's private benefit. The money is a minor side effect.

We can see the same attitude in attempts to hinder public access to public data like weather forecasts, except through a third party vendor who ponies up considerable dough. It's not the income that matters, it's the exclusivity. Like clean air, information has no market value until you are forced to pay for it.

The inability to see a common good in something like technological spinoffs from space exploration means that the whole activity is seen as worth less than the sum of its assets. This is not about enriching NASA, it's about liquidating any value it might have.