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To those asking the question "why aren't patents automatically in the public domain?", the question received a decent answer on Stack Exchange two years ago: h

by eganist 11y ago

To those asking the question "why aren't patents automatically in the public domain?", the question received a decent answer on Stack Exchange two years ago: http://patents.stackexchange.com/questions/9994/are-patents-granted-to-the-us-government-public-domain http://patents.stackexchange.com/questions/9994/are-patents-... "No, they are owned by the U.S. and controlled by the specific agency where the inventing happened. However, there is a policy of licensing. It is covered in 35 USC 209. The logic behind this is that the U.S. would like the public to benefit from the invention and if anybody can do it, it may very well be that no one actually does it. Without some exclusivity it may be that no one will be able to justify the investment to enter the market." -George White One of the comments to that answer also suggests inventors of government patents also get a fixed percentage of revenue, which wouldn't surprise me as an incentive to drive government employees to come up with novel inventions on the clock.

unchocked 11y ago
A similar argument could be made for copyrighting government works: maybe no one would publish them if not granted a monopoly, and maybe getting a kickback would incentivize government employees to create copyrightable works. ... I'm glad it isn't, and am inclined to view government patents in the same way most of us view crown copyright.
- ghaff 11y ago
  The cases are pretty different. The government isn't generally creating copyrightable works with the hope of turning a profit on them. They're creating them, e.g. as part of the mission of an agency. Think NASA photographs for example. To be copyrightable, the work needs to exist in more or less final form. That's what is copyrighted. By contrast, while what's patented goes beyond an idea, it may not be usable for anything until someone has spent significant money to commercialize it--and maybe not even then.
jlcx 11y ago
It's an informative answer in terms of what current policy is, but "it may be" is not a good justification for legal restriction on what people can do with government inventions.

by eganist 11y ago

unchocked 11y ago

A similar argument could be made for copyrighting government works: maybe no one would publish them if not granted a monopoly, and maybe getting a kickback would incentivize government employees to create copyrightable works. ... I'm glad it isn't, and am inclined to view government patents in the same way most of us view crown copyright.

ghaff 11y ago
The cases are pretty different. The government isn't generally creating copyrightable works with the hope of turning a profit on them. They're creating them, e.g. as part of the mission of an agency. Think NASA photographs for example. To be copyrightable, the work needs to exist in more or less final form. That's what is copyrighted. By contrast, while what's patented goes beyond an idea, it may not be usable for anything until someone has spent significant money to commercialize it--and maybe not even then.

jlcx 11y ago

It's an informative answer in terms of what current policy is, but "it may be" is not a good justification for legal restriction on what people can do with government inventions.