4 ms·

If you are not planning a career in academia, wouldnt it be better to patent it? Just wondering...

• KGIII 9y ago
  Not everything can be patented and some folks have ethical concerns about keeping research open. Not to mention, you pretty much have to publish once you get into grad school. If you're going for your Ph.D. then your goal is to further the art.
• santaclaus 9y ago
  They aren't mutually exclusive. As a researcher/engineer, whenever we publish in a top tier journal the company usually files for patents on the main contribution too.
• PeterisP 9y ago
  Most research is not patentable. Technical development and design that results in some "method and apparatus" to do a particular thing is patentable, but the research required before that R&D that leads to understand how stuff works and what might work is not patentable. And that's not speaking about less technical fields of science where nothing is patentable, or computer science which is not patentable in much of the world (software patents aren't valid in EU and other places). Also, patenting is expensive. Especially because you need to file a patent in multiple major markets, you need multiple different patent lawyers, if you're outside of USA then filing a patent in USA is a bit of a hassle, and just for USA+main EU countries gets quite costly quick - so that's a reason not to patent things unless you have a clear picture that some product is going to violate that patent and thus it'll become valuable.
  • santaclaus 9y ago
    > Most research is not patentable. In my experience, the lawyers just chuck 'A System for' in front of the paper's title and open the firehose at the patent office. Lots of ridiculous stuff gets through...