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A comment on Universities have turned over hundreds of patents to patent trolls. Parent comment

Re:Universities have turned over hundreds of patents to pate... by harryh on Friday October 14, 2016 @05:56PM (#12711394)
Universities (especially top tier ones) aren't just institutions of learning(1) but also knowledge generation organizations. Not allowing the people who actually generate new knowledge to share in the financial benefits would run counter to this goal.

1. I would even go so far as to argue that for top tier institutions that teaching isn't even their primary function.

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Re:Universities have turned over hundreds of patents to pate... by Grishnakh on Wednesday October 19, 2016 @10:34AM (#12744122)
No problem: then just cut off all public funding for these institutions and make them entirely private (they need to pay back the State for the money they've received though).

If you want to privatize profits, you need to privatize the costs too. Don't ask me to fund something and not be able to share in the profits.

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Re:Universities have turned over hundreds of patents to pate... by harryh on Wednesday October 19, 2016 @10:57AM (#12744350)
You don't have rights to the salaries that public university graduates are able to earn based upon their degrees. Why would you expect to have rights to the profits earned based upon the knowledge generated by these institutions?

The plan you describe would lead to far less fruitful basic research and a poorer world as a result.

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Re:Universities have turned over hundreds of patents to pate... by Grishnakh on Friday October 21, 2016 @10:35AM (#12760771)
Holy shit. Maybe because I'm a part-owner in this institutions? Would you think it fair for a private company to take my money as investment money, and give me nothing in return, and keep all the profits for themselves?

I've never met anyone who actually believed in "privatize the profits, socialize the losses", but here you are.

And your claims about basic research and a poorer world have no evidence whatsoever to back them up. Universities have not always been this way.

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Re:Universities have turned over hundreds of patents to pate... by zeveb on Friday October 14, 2016 @06:04PM (#12711472)
> Not allowing the people who actually generate new knowledge to share in the financial benefits would run counter to this goal.

I think that tenure is itself pretty much the most awesome benefit possible: guaranteed employment for life. Do they really need more?

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Re:Universities have turned over hundreds of patents to pate... by harryh on Friday October 14, 2016 @06:26PM (#12711581)
I highly doubt that the supply curve in this area is completely horizontal. So, at the margin, yes.
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