Sure, in a way, but, at what point do we say the idea has value? PageRank didn't seem particularly valuable until the Google folks built something "useful" out

Sure, in a way, but, at what point do we say the idea has value? PageRank didn't seem particularly valuable until the Google folks built something "useful" out of it. I can imagine that someone who could envision its use (or, more esoterically, someone with lots of money who likes collecting things) might have bought the idea itself, and while the idea itself has intrinsic intellectual value, it is of no good [to society as a whole, or to those who do not enjoy understanding the idea for its own sake] nor of any profit just sitting there as an idea, or as a research paper. Companies spend money regularly to license patents... to pay to use ideas. But what company would find value in simply licensing the patent just to enjoy it? The value is found in licensing the patent and using the idea to create something with it. At the very least, there is more than one kind of "value".