I know a few academics, and they are rightly careful about sharing their ideas before they get far enough with the implementation (lab work, publications) to en

I know a few academics, and they are rightly careful about sharing their ideas before they get far enough with the implementation (lab work, publications) to ensure that they will be credited. Perhaps it is just different fields, but most academics I know (I know math from my own graduate studies and history indirectly through my wife) will talk your ear off about their current work if you express a willingness to listen much less an interest. Most of the ones I know (again math and history) aren't worried about idea stealing because they have more ideas than they have time to work on and they know that all but the most trivial ideas will take substantial work to go forward with, its the research that counts not the idea for research. IANAL and everything, but some IP lawyers came to talk to a startup I worked at once to tell us about how important it is to shut the fuck up, and evidently simply being "the programmer" doesn't mean you have to be included on a patent. IANAL, but this definitely fits with my limited understanding of patent law. But that does not mean ideas per se have value outside the law. This is more an indication that patent law needs to be reformed than that ideas have intrinsic value. (Incidentally, Richard Feynman has an interesting story about how his name wound up on the patent for nuclear submarines in his book: What Do You Care What Other People Think?)