CSIRO Reinvests Patent Earnings

ozmanjusri writes with an update to a story we discussed a few days ago about a $200 million patent victory by CSIRO, Australia's governmental science research body. The organization has now turned around and reinvested $150 million of the proceeds into the science and industry endowment fund, which has already established three grants: "$12 million for two wireless research projects and $7.5 million for up to 120 fellowships and scholarships." CSIRO boss Megan Clark said, "It's very important that when you have a success like this, you reinvest it back into the wellspring. It's really about supporting areas that might need a helping hand in some of the frontier areas and research that actually tackles the national challenges."

Comments

too bad the proceeds came from stifling progress

[nietsch]

allocating 3/4 of your winnings to science does not diminish the fact that a state-funded organisation has probably spent the remainder on litigation and harassing hi-tech companies. The issuing of patent with a lifetime of 20 years to technology that has a lifetime of much less is stifling progress.

Re:too bad the proceeds came from stifling progres

[nietsch]

because that 200 million (+ similar amount in attorney fees) could have been spent on research by the ones actually designing and making the devices. add to that the millions of manufacturers that did not fight but decided to pay up. But the bad thing is the methods they used to get their earnings, not the actual subject. patents per-se are bad, so these ones are too. That is is a public institution that does the extortion makes it even worse. Their results should be for the good of all people, or for the good of all australian people if you want to be nationalis.t