I agree that may be the case in general, but the Leverhulme trust explicitly doesn't fund research whose purpose is commercialisation (http://www.leverhulme.ac.

I agree that may be the case in general, but the Leverhulme trust explicitly doesn't fund research whose purpose is commercialisation (http://www.leverhulme.ac.uk/funding/RPG/RPG.cfm http://www.leverhulme.ac.uk/funding/RPG/RPG.cfm). Your second and third points are very good ones; it all depends on the implementation. I join you in hoping for a licensing strategy that maximises the social benefit of the technology.