Why Geim Never Patented Graphene

gbrumfiel writes "As we discussed on Tuesday, Andre Geim won this year's Nobel prize in physics for graphene, but he never patented it. In an interview with Nature News, he explains why: 'We considered patenting; we prepared a patent and it was nearly filed. Then I had an interaction with a big, multinational electronics company. I approached a guy at a conference and said, "We've got this patent coming up, would you be interested in sponsoring it over the years?" It's quite expensive to keep a patent alive for 20 years. The guy told me, "We are looking at graphene, and it might have a future in the long term. If after ten years we find it's really as good as it promises, we will put a hundred patent lawyers on it to write a hundred patents a day, and you will spend the rest of your life, and the gross domestic product of your little island, suing us." That's a direct quote.'"

Comments

Re:What island are they referring to?

[James Durie]

Wow I never knew that England was an island.
If the GDP of England was $2.2 trillion what was the GDP of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland?

Or are you one of those people who doesn't understand the difference between England and the UK?

Re:What island are they referring to?

[LWATCDR]

Shakespeare says it is.
"Consuming means, soon preys upon itself.
This royal throne of kings, this sceptred isle,
This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars,
This other Eden, demi-paradise;
This fortress, built by nature for herself,
Against infection, and the hand of war;
This happy breed of men, this little world;
This precious stone set in the silver sea,
Which serves it in the office of a wall,
Or as a moat defensive to a house,
Against the envy of less happier lands;
This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England,"

And Winston Churchill
"What tragedies, what horrors, what crimes has Hitler and all that Hitler stands for brought upon Europe and the world! The ruins of Warsaw, of Rotterdam, of Belgrade are monuments which will long recall to future generations the outrage of unopposed air bombing applied with calculated scientific cruelty to helpless populations. Here in London and throughout the cities of our island and in Ireland there may also be seen marks of devastation. They are being repaid and presently they will be more than repaid. "
Churchill also called England "this island fortress".

While not true, England has been called an Island nation by many people and at many times in many pretty famous works of literature. And as I have show by pretty famous Englishman.

You see that is the problem. People in the EU think they are the center of the world and don't even know their own history or literature. Unlike here in the US where we get a more balanced world based historical education.
Yea I just said that to tick off the EU folks that like say that we don't know any history.