Universities own researchers' IP & control the patenting of federally-funded research innovations. But this might be stifling creativity and productivity instead of accelerating it.
The topic is not really that complicated, we are just focusing on the wrong issue. Patents and IP shouldn't exist at all in the first place!
Just think for a second, the only purpose they serve is "making a profit for the holder", and since that is their only use, they are likely to be abused (think about how many things we pay way more than needed, even though their inventors are long gone; or think about the effort and paperwork and money wasted just to navigate the IP and patent field in order to determine what is available and who you must pay to use some concept). It's basically the closest thing to a "thought police" we have - you are forbidden to use your own ideas because someone owns them. How do you own an idea? It is deeply inhuman to operate in such a way, it is demoralising enough as a researcher to not own any rights to your own published work (which you created, formated, checked for errors, and paid for publication). As long as we treat scientists as children, unable to control their own fruits of labor, real scientific innovation will be slow. If everyone is focused on making things the market currently wants, innovations will be non-existent, since markets aren't aware of innovative solutions.
In every other profession, you own your work UNTIL you sell it. Only in science you never have any ownership over your work. That is fundamentally unfair and has to change. Entrepreneurship is also not the answer, since scientific research and business operate on the opposite logic, so good scientists can never be good business owners. No quick and easx fixes here, we must reset the entire field, and it will be a long struggle.
Thanks for sharing! This is definitely an opinion many other scientists share. I feel the "resetting the field" desire is certainly relatable, and in fact applies to many of the issues I look into in academia (AI in research, peer review, publishing pressure, citation mills, ... the list goes on!). But, in practice, it's such a big and slow-moving system, it seems that only incremental changes (whether from policy or social pressure) and/or radical tech really puts a dent in it. What do you think?
Just to be clear, I am not advocating anything regressive, we should keep all the knowledge, skills and tech accumulated through these times. However, I agree with you in the sentiment thaz change will be very slow. It's simple late-stage capitalism - researchers, which should have freedom in their work, time for proper quality of work, and who solve long-term problems are forced due to market pressures to limit their scopes due to funders demands, work in a very tight scedule due to the funders (again) and the ridiculous mounting bureucracy and administrative tasks, forced to suffer bitter rivalry due to the competitive mindstate related to market competition and popular hyperindividuality, and have to work exclusively on acute, short term solutions (which is why there are no big theoretical breakthroughs in the last 50-60 years). Worse yet is the inaccessibility of the legal system, which suffers the same problems (mounting amounts of legislstion dealing with short term problems, which overall reduce the ability to survey the legal landscape and allows more power to legal interpreters than lawmakers).
That all being said, the problem is huge and extremely multifaceted, but like any revolution, it must start from the bottom up - just look at the failed project from the South Korean company Pluto (designers of Scinapse search engine) - they envisioned a global peer-review network that would replace publishing companies which are the biggest drain on academic work, yet it was rejected by (surprise surprise) - senior scienists who are bitterly accustomed to the established parasitic system and refuse any change. We should empower the younger generations, since they were always the agents of change, in every field, at any time. Currently the junior researchers, which outnumber seniors, mostly have no leverage and just follow orders, while seniors are too much in tune with the broken system we have the last 3-4 decades.
I believe it is important to differentiate between commercial rights and authorship. In most employment contracts, whether in academia or industry, the employee signs away the right to commercial use of any IP generated as part of the employment. This seems fair to me, because the employer will have to fund the costs involved. This may include fees for filing patents in various countries, which can get very expensive. Often, it is difficult to predict whether such patents will ever make any money (e.g., who would have thought of COVID 2005?)- in fact most don't. Nevertheless, offering employees who are the original inventors a decent share of potential future revenues as motivation is something every employer should consider.
Certainly, that's an important distinction. The fact that employers fund these projects is one of the key reasons why many people agree its the orgs/employers who should have the "patenting power". And as you point out, it's in these org's own interest to offer a "decent share of potential future revenues". But I think the case of Katalin Karikó shows that issues come up not just around the revenue sharing, but the rights to kind of "own" that research and choose what happens to it. I agree - it's a complex topic, and we need experts from a lot of sides to make the right calls!
The topic is not really that complicated, we are just focusing on the wrong issue. Patents and IP shouldn't exist at all in the first place!
Just think for a second, the only purpose they serve is "making a profit for the holder", and since that is their only use, they are likely to be abused (think about how many things we pay way more than needed, even though their inventors are long gone; or think about the effort and paperwork and money wasted just to navigate the IP and patent field in order to determine what is available and who you must pay to use some concept). It's basically the closest thing to a "thought police" we have - you are forbidden to use your own ideas because someone owns them. How do you own an idea? It is deeply inhuman to operate in such a way, it is demoralising enough as a researcher to not own any rights to your own published work (which you created, formated, checked for errors, and paid for publication). As long as we treat scientists as children, unable to control their own fruits of labor, real scientific innovation will be slow. If everyone is focused on making things the market currently wants, innovations will be non-existent, since markets aren't aware of innovative solutions.
In every other profession, you own your work UNTIL you sell it. Only in science you never have any ownership over your work. That is fundamentally unfair and has to change. Entrepreneurship is also not the answer, since scientific research and business operate on the opposite logic, so good scientists can never be good business owners. No quick and easx fixes here, we must reset the entire field, and it will be a long struggle.
Thanks for sharing! This is definitely an opinion many other scientists share. I feel the "resetting the field" desire is certainly relatable, and in fact applies to many of the issues I look into in academia (AI in research, peer review, publishing pressure, citation mills, ... the list goes on!). But, in practice, it's such a big and slow-moving system, it seems that only incremental changes (whether from policy or social pressure) and/or radical tech really puts a dent in it. What do you think?
Thank you for replying!
Just to be clear, I am not advocating anything regressive, we should keep all the knowledge, skills and tech accumulated through these times. However, I agree with you in the sentiment thaz change will be very slow. It's simple late-stage capitalism - researchers, which should have freedom in their work, time for proper quality of work, and who solve long-term problems are forced due to market pressures to limit their scopes due to funders demands, work in a very tight scedule due to the funders (again) and the ridiculous mounting bureucracy and administrative tasks, forced to suffer bitter rivalry due to the competitive mindstate related to market competition and popular hyperindividuality, and have to work exclusively on acute, short term solutions (which is why there are no big theoretical breakthroughs in the last 50-60 years). Worse yet is the inaccessibility of the legal system, which suffers the same problems (mounting amounts of legislstion dealing with short term problems, which overall reduce the ability to survey the legal landscape and allows more power to legal interpreters than lawmakers).
That all being said, the problem is huge and extremely multifaceted, but like any revolution, it must start from the bottom up - just look at the failed project from the South Korean company Pluto (designers of Scinapse search engine) - they envisioned a global peer-review network that would replace publishing companies which are the biggest drain on academic work, yet it was rejected by (surprise surprise) - senior scienists who are bitterly accustomed to the established parasitic system and refuse any change. We should empower the younger generations, since they were always the agents of change, in every field, at any time. Currently the junior researchers, which outnumber seniors, mostly have no leverage and just follow orders, while seniors are too much in tune with the broken system we have the last 3-4 decades.
I believe it is important to differentiate between commercial rights and authorship. In most employment contracts, whether in academia or industry, the employee signs away the right to commercial use of any IP generated as part of the employment. This seems fair to me, because the employer will have to fund the costs involved. This may include fees for filing patents in various countries, which can get very expensive. Often, it is difficult to predict whether such patents will ever make any money (e.g., who would have thought of COVID 2005?)- in fact most don't. Nevertheless, offering employees who are the original inventors a decent share of potential future revenues as motivation is something every employer should consider.
Authorship, by contrast, should be handled for patents in the same way as for scientific publications in the ICMJE guidelines (https://www.icmje.org/recommendations/browse/roles-and-responsibilities/defining-the-role-of-authors-and-contributors.html). Furthermore, I think the right to be named as author is something that cannot be signed away in a contract, at least in European law, but I would be interested in comment from someone with real expertise in these matters.
Certainly, that's an important distinction. The fact that employers fund these projects is one of the key reasons why many people agree its the orgs/employers who should have the "patenting power". And as you point out, it's in these org's own interest to offer a "decent share of potential future revenues". But I think the case of Katalin Karikó shows that issues come up not just around the revenue sharing, but the rights to kind of "own" that research and choose what happens to it. I agree - it's a complex topic, and we need experts from a lot of sides to make the right calls!