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This is really more of an issue with how universities value the research, I think. Most of the time, there isn't a very clear immediate business benefit, so th
by cube13 15y ago
This is really more of an issue with how universities value the research, I think. Most of the time, there isn't a very clear immediate business benefit, so they're willing to part with the IP for very little money.
Prime case is the Mosaic browser IP and the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. All the research was done by the National Center for Supercomputing Applications for the university, and when it was completed and released, didn't really bother to try to get anything from it. The university basically sold the rights to an offshoot company for a very small fee-I believe it was under $1 million, and didn't see any money from it after that.
- _delirium 15y agoPart of that is a deliberate strategy on the part of some universities, based on a guess that they'll get more in donations from corporations, spinoffs, and successful alumni voluntarily, than they would get by being tight-fisted with IP. Plus, it increases the university's prestige to have their stuff involved in more products, and their alumni involved in more successful ventures, so there's a cost to doing anything that would complicate stuff up-front. The goal is to get it on the back-end instead: don't hassle the not-yet-successful startup, but if they IPO, nag to see if they're willing to kick in a $50m building or write you into their will. I'm not sure which version of the calculus is right, but it's at least plausible to me that universities stand to lose more in donations/prestige than they'd gain in royalties if they took stricter approaches to patent licensing.