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

Personally, I don

[Attack DAWWG]

't mind that kind of thing. The subject leads into the text, so it works pretty well.

Re:Name and Shame.

[Bill_the_Engineer]

The 1st amendment of the US constitution protects its citizens from their government NOT from corporations.

People tend to forget the "Congress shall make no law..." part of the amendment when they start trying to postulate that someone's first amendment rights were somehow violated.

Let me frame it in more general terms as formalized by the UN, this way everybody can translate this into their respective country's constitution:

It is more accurate that a person's basic human right to free speech (UN article 19) may have been violated if it is shown that it didn't infringe on another person's basic human right to not be falsely accused (UN articles 8,9,10 and most importantly article 30). These are listed within the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

In the west this translates into - You have the freedom of expression that can not be suppressed by your government, however your freedom of expression does not grant you immunity for any liability that may result.

Of course don't forget the golden rule: Whoever has the gold, makes the rules.

Re:Name and Shame.

[lattyware]

The Americans patented forgetting to speak a language - they did it with English.