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It's really outrageous. University research publications behind paywalls, but paid for by us. Now patents, the development paid for by us, in the hands of trol

It's really outrageous. University research publications behind paywalls, but paid for by us. Now patents, the development paid for by us, in the hands of trolls. And public universities involved. This privatization is outrageous.

rayiner 10y ago
Just because university research is paid for by the public does not mean that all the results should be in the public domain. It would be absurd, for example, for a VC to demand 100% of a company's equity in return for providing the funding necessary to keep the lights on while a product is developed. There is a long history of innovation happening from universities spinning-off patented technology into private companies. E.g. what John Hennessy did with MIPS. It's a great model. If you get rid of it, you'd turn universities into ivory-tower ghettos where researchers would only go if they had no desire to make money.
- CamperBob2 10y ago
  It would be absurd, for example, for a VC to demand 100% of a company's equity It's a school, not a business. The idea that there's supposed to be any equity is novel, to put it mildly. Your analogy would make more sense if it described a hypothetical VC who puts in 100% of the money in exchange for no equity at all, because the company is holding a gun to his head.
- Grishnakh 10y ago
  VCs aren't spending my money. Universities are, because they're subsidized by taxes. If they want to make money which says in private hands, they can do it with their own money, not taxpayer funds. Universities were never meant to be profit-generating entities, but institutions of learning. The people in universities should be happy to have a cushy, tenured academic job; people who have a serious "desire to make money" (beyond that of a professor's salary, which is both good and very stable) don't belong at universities at all, they should be working in the private sector.
  - rayiner 10y ago
    > VCs aren't spending my money. Money is money. From the perspective of the incentives of the hypothetical researcher, it's irrelevant where the money comes from. If the government demands 100% equity in return for investment, it just becomes the least competitive VC on the market, doomed to fund the least compelling projects. > The people in universities should be happy to have a cushy, tenured academic job; people who have a serious "desire to make money" (beyond that of a professor's salary, which is both good and very stable) don't belong at universities at all, they should be working in the private sector. Strongly disagree. One of the reasons the U.S. has hands-down the best engineering universities in the world is because of the fluid boundary between academia and the private sector. Filling universities with people who just want a cushy academic job is a great way to make academic research completely irrelevant.
    - nickpsecurity 10y ago
      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.
      - rayiner 10y ago
        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.
        nickpsecurity 10y ago
        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.
- agjacobson 10y ago
  You have a good point. What I don't see is: (1) Some control over professors running outright businesses, and once tenured, putting much of their effort into those businesses, while still drawing senior-level pay. I don't claim this is common. But it is a major moral hazard. (2) Little compensation for graduate students whose contributions range from scutwork to the critical innovation involved. They have to execute the technology in the lab -- in industry, this is most prized, not "the idea." What mechanism is their for fairness here? Oh, right, they're getting a free education. OK. But what if the university earns $10's of millions of dollars off their labor? (3) When professors innovate in active commercial markets, rather than in really bleeding edge areas, there is an intrinsic unfairness. In essence, the government, through its funding, is picking winners. It is a defense if the overall society is improved. If professors get rich, that's also fine.

rayiner 10y ago

Just because university research is paid for by the public does not mean that all the results should be in the public domain. It would be absurd, for example, for a VC to demand 100% of a company's equity in return for providing the funding necessary to keep the lights on while a product is developed. There is a long history of innovation happening from universities spinning-off patented technology into private companies. E.g. what John Hennessy did with MIPS. It's a great model. If you get rid of it, you'd turn universities into ivory-tower ghettos where researchers would only go if they had no desire to make money.

CamperBob2 10y ago
It would be absurd, for example, for a VC to demand 100% of a company's equity It's a school, not a business. The idea that there's supposed to be any equity is novel, to put it mildly. Your analogy would make more sense if it described a hypothetical VC who puts in 100% of the money in exchange for no equity at all, because the company is holding a gun to his head.
Grishnakh 10y ago
VCs aren't spending my money. Universities are, because they're subsidized by taxes. If they want to make money which says in private hands, they can do it with their own money, not taxpayer funds. Universities were never meant to be profit-generating entities, but institutions of learning. The people in universities should be happy to have a cushy, tenured academic job; people who have a serious "desire to make money" (beyond that of a professor's salary, which is both good and very stable) don't belong at universities at all, they should be working in the private sector.
- rayiner 10y ago
  > VCs aren't spending my money. Money is money. From the perspective of the incentives of the hypothetical researcher, it's irrelevant where the money comes from. If the government demands 100% equity in return for investment, it just becomes the least competitive VC on the market, doomed to fund the least compelling projects. > The people in universities should be happy to have a cushy, tenured academic job; people who have a serious "desire to make money" (beyond that of a professor's salary, which is both good and very stable) don't belong at universities at all, they should be working in the private sector. Strongly disagree. One of the reasons the U.S. has hands-down the best engineering universities in the world is because of the fluid boundary between academia and the private sector. Filling universities with people who just want a cushy academic job is a great way to make academic research completely irrelevant.
  - nickpsecurity 10y ago
    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.
    - rayiner 10y ago
      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.
      - nickpsecurity 10y ago
        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.
agjacobson 10y ago
You have a good point. What I don't see is: (1) Some control over professors running outright businesses, and once tenured, putting much of their effort into those businesses, while still drawing senior-level pay. I don't claim this is common. But it is a major moral hazard. (2) Little compensation for graduate students whose contributions range from scutwork to the critical innovation involved. They have to execute the technology in the lab -- in industry, this is most prized, not "the idea." What mechanism is their for fairness here? Oh, right, they're getting a free education. OK. But what if the university earns $10's of millions of dollars off their labor? (3) When professors innovate in active commercial markets, rather than in really bleeding edge areas, there is an intrinsic unfairness. In essence, the government, through its funding, is picking winners. It is a defense if the overall society is improved. If professors get rich, that's also fine.