NASA Launches Searchable Database Of Public Domain Patents (slashgear.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from SlashGear: NASA has released a bunch of patents for its technologies so that anyone can use them. A total of 56 'formerly-patented' technologies developed by the government are now available in the public domain, meaning they can be used for commercial purposes in an unrestricted manner. To make it easier to find these technologies and others like them, NASA has also created a new searchable database that links the public to thousands of the agency's now-expired patents. According to NASA, the patents it has released may have non-aerospace applications that could help companies with commercial projects underway. Of the 56 formerly-patented technologies, users will find things like methods of propulsion, thrusters, rocket nozzles, advanced manufacturing processes, and more. NASA is "encouraging entrepreneurs to explore new ways to commercial NASA technologies," says NASA executive Daniel Lockney. Here's a direct link to search the database to your heart's content.

Comments

Simple question

[Anonymous Coward]

Why aren't patents owned or funded by the federal government in the public domain? Can anyone justify why the Bayh-Dole Act gives universities control of patents generated by federally funded research? If NASA, NSF, or some other government agency gives a grant to a university to do research, the university owns the patents and they must be licensed by the public. Can anyone justify this? I'm glad to see patents in the public domain, but it's not nearly enough.

Re:Simple question

[drinkypoo]

Can anyone justify why the Bayh-Dole Act gives universities control of patents generated by federally funded research?

Right now it's to help run the planet into the toilet, AFAICT. For example, BP and DuPont have a corporation called Butamax which holds one of these patents generated, in part, by our tax dollars. The patent is on putting the genes from Clostridium acetobutylicum which make it produce butanol into other organisms which are more hardy, to improve production rates. While this is non-trivial, it is certainly obvious, so it should not have been patentable to begin with. Regardless, you and I paid for this patent, and now it's being used to prevent Gevo (a GE energy ventures subsidiary) from producing and selling Butanol - a 1:1 replacement for gasoline which can be burned in existing engines without modification, since they are already alcohol-resistant today in order to deal with the gasohol which has been effectively mandated since MTBE was banned by CA and NY in 2004.

So corporations get to spend our money developing technologies they don't want to use because they're a threat to their petro-based industries... good times

Re:Simple question

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, and why there is any need for "public domain patents"? Theoretically publishing is enought that nobody else can patent it but...
As an (co)author of several patents I can tell you: the USPTO examiners NEVER look into other publications than USPRO patents and applications. Not once happened to me or my coleagues that they would cite a paper, book, webpage, existing imlementation, other countries patents/application written in English (UK/Europe) or anything else. If it is not in their database, it does not exist - they make their job easy without thonking of consequences. This way bublic-domain knowledge can be (and is is) stolen ("privatised") on regular basis by private entities with approval of USPTO. If you happen to be already using this patented public knowledge you are screwed unless you are bilion-dolar company and you have a few milions to spare for legal expenses. How can we faight this "justice for ritch-only" legal hydra? How much different is this than "justice for strong-only", " justice for gyus-with-the-guns" or other anarchy rules? Such a selective justice is no justice at all.

Re:Simple question

[SeattleLawGuy]

Why aren't patents owned or funded by the federal government in the public domain? Can anyone justify why the Bayh-Dole Act gives universities control of patents generated by federally funded research? If NASA, NSF, or some other government agency gives a grant to a university to do research, the university owns the patents and they must be licensed by the public. Can anyone justify this? I'm glad to see patents in the public domain, but it's not nearly enough.

There are legitimate policy reasons for it, although it would also be legitimate to have outright dedication to the public domain, for example; it's a policy choice where people can come down either way.

Notably, the inventions go into the public domain in a few decades anyway, and the grants are helping to fund science education, so the public is still getting a significant benefit. It also keeps more labs interested: Universities are less likely to hesitate to apply for a grant, patent royalties may help subsidize education even long after the grant is spent, etc...

Finally, this means labs are sometimes able to combine government grants with private funding, which would not be the case if the University did not know it would get the patent rights.

The times they are 'a changin'

[rmdingler]

We've reached a disappointing time in history when NASA's new launch is a "Searchable Database".

Re:The times they are 'a changin'

[Anonymous Coward]

it's not even a new launch. Their patent site has been around for a while, at least a year that I know of. This is a new release of more patents, which they have been doing periodically, again for quite some time. Nothing about this is new except it's time for a few more patents to be released. Really shitty reporting.

Re:The times they are 'a changin'

[Anonymous Coward]

We've reached a disappointing time in history when NASA's new launch is a "Searchable Database".

To oldly go where every database has gone before?

searchable but not findable

[frovingslosh]

It isn't really a searchable database, it is just more of the same from NASA. No info on UFOs or how to film those silly movies they had made showing men on the moon. Just another layer of the cover-up.

I wonder if they're using googles search?

[Anonymous Coward]

https://patents.google.com/

Remember the good old days

[rossdee]

when NASA used to launch people into space

Re:Remember the good old days

[Anonymous Coward]

Yea, now all they do is send probes to freakin' Pluto.

Re:Remember the good old days

[Coren22]

Yeah, all the way back to March 18, 2016...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Oooh, that gives me an idea

[Solandri]

Allow anyone to file a public domain patent at no cost (or a trivial cost, like $10). So if you've got an idea you think is so simple that it shouldn't be patentable, but you're worried that if you don't patent it someone else might succeed at tricking the patent office into granting it and suing you, you can just file it as a public domain patent. You cannot make any money off of it, so you aren't charged much money for it.

Basically it flips around the first-to-file concept of invalidating a patent if you can prove you thought of the idea before the patent filing date. Under that model you have to first be sued for patent infringement, then have to come up with the proof invalidating it and hope it sticks. Under this model, you can file the proof ahead of time, and it will serve as your guaranteed get out of patent infringement free card - automatically invalidating any future patents incorrectly granted for the same concept.

Re:Oooh, that gives me an idea

[Anonymous Coward]

Too bad it means more work for the bureaucrats, and not a moneymaker for them, so it's a no-go unless you can figure a way around that.

Re:Oooh, that gives me an idea

[Anonymous Coward]

I believe that's what the Creative Commons license does. The problem is you have to do the same getting-a-patent process as for any other patent before licensing it.

Bayh Dole?

[Anonymous Coward]

So you're asking this rhetorically, because wikipedia, among other places, explains the origins of Bayh Dole.
You do know, of course, that there's always "government purpose rights" for the invention, so the government can use the invention for free - if they fund the development of a Zika vaccine, and the *government* decides to distribute the vaccine, there's no royalties.

In any case, there's also a desire for the government to get a "good price" for doing some work. Say you're a government agency and you need a compiler for BCPL - you could do two things: fund a company to develop the compiler, and just take limited government rights or take "unlimited rights for distribution" - the company might quote you a different price - in the first case, they may figure that there's some commercial value and that maybe others might pay for this new BCPL compiler, so the government doesn't fund the entire cost of development.

Obviously, all of these schemes are subject to abuse.

Re:Bayh Dole?

[PPH]

Say you're a government agency and you need a compiler for BCPL

I think this sort of thing isn't patentable. At least not by the company or university funded to do the work. The 'novel' idea has already been thought of by the agency. The company has just been hired to do the design and coding grunt work to a specification.

I don't doubt that a lot of this goes on already. Government inventions being in the public domain (classified stuff aside), there's no profit motive. So they pass the idea on to a buddy at a private s/w firm in exchange for a few bureaucrats taking a financial interest in the product on the side.

56? Why a fully searchable database?

[Anonymous Coward]

56 is a list that fits on a single page--why go through the trouble to create a fully searchable database for them??

18th post!

[N3wsByt3]

Pretty few posts on this topic, I must say...

That said, since NASA is paid by tax-payers' money, they should make available ALL of their patents to ALL the citizens...