Universities have turned over hundreds of patents to patent trolls

Re:Universities have turned over hundreds of patents to pate... by nickpsecurity on Friday October 14, 2016 @05:54PM (#12711385)

I disagree on least compelling. Lots of the best stuff coming out of DARPA and NSF research is either not commercialized or could allow for competing implementations while giving innovater first-mover advantage. Smart people interested in impacting the world will do so regardless of whether they can start a business. Many of the great ones actually just continue as researchers since that's their passion.

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Re:Universities have turned over hundreds of patents to pate... by rayiner on Friday October 14, 2016 @06:11PM (#12711510)

First mover advantage has little value in the industries DARPA and NSF find. And both DARPA and NSF (by design) allow companies receiving grants to patent the results of their research.

That is not to say that all DARPA and NSF-funded research should be patented. To the extent the research is more fundamental and less applied it shouldn't be. But DARPA and NSF fund both theoretical and applied research and so do universities.

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Re:Universities have turned over hundreds of patents to pate... by nickpsecurity on Friday October 14, 2016 @06:37PM (#12711626)

I know they fund the companies. I was just saying the people getting that funding often work for universities that wouldve built it any way whether a patent or not. Lots of top-tier results come from that. So, I dont think switching to that model exclusively would make less compelling results. It might reduce the number or change university/private ratio of where innovations come from.

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