3 ms·
Jonas Salk is one of my personal heroes. Probably the best and most selfless human I can think of. A true credit of and benefit to humanity. A stark contrast wi
by Clubber 3y ago
Jonas Salk is one of my personal heroes. Probably the best and most selfless human I can think of. A true credit of and benefit to humanity. A stark contrast with most of today's innovators.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonas_Salk https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonas_Salk
Salk was immediately hailed as a "miracle worker" when the vaccine's success was first made public in April 1955, and chose to not patent the vaccine or seek any profit from it in order to maximize its global distribution.
- pclmulqdq 3y agoSalk tried and failed to patent the polio vaccine because it was rejected by the USPTO as not being novel. He didn't choose not to patent the vaccine out of the goodness of his heart.
- Aloha 3y agoThis runs counter to every source I've read - do you have a source for it?
- kaliumex 3y agoThe patent was pursued by National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis who funded Salk's research. Salk himself wasn't much in favour of a patent, stating that his techniques weren’t novel and the work was built upon the research of others. https://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-mh-polio-vaccine-20141028-column.html https://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-mh-polio-vacc...
- pclmulqdq 3y agoAll of those famous public statements by Salk occurred after his work was determined to be unpatentable by the funding agency. We don't really know what happened behind closed doors other than the normal university/nonprofit research process, which involves a lot of profiteering. The same thing happened with Sabin before that vaccine was also released without a patent (Sabin would have been a Soviet/Russian patent, so it's a slightly different system). The famous "could you patent the sun" quote was about obviousness, not about anything else.