
Universities warn Congress that patent reform would harm US innovation - sinak2
http://www.aau.edu/policy/article.aspx?id=15923
======
lettergram
I'd like to say...

I just attended a talk where one of the professors is using NSF funding to
conduct research, then patent all of their work. Companies are then forced to
pay the university based research group for use of their products and for
further development.

Personally, I cannot decide whether or not this is for the best or not. The
research group can bring in more money to produce quality work. On the other
hand, the tax payers are benefiting the creation of patented items they have
to pay for?

It seems really strange to me.

~~~
williamstein
I'm a University professor who does much work funded by the NSF (millions of
dollars), whose university (Univ of Washington) is on that list. My tech
transfer office tried hard to make me keep some of my software work closed
source and succeeded for years (see
[http://sagemath.blogspot.com/2014/08/what-is-
sagemathcloud-l...](http://sagemath.blogspot.com/2014/08/what-is-
sagemathcloud-lets-clear-some.html)). In December I realized to my surprise
that some of my NSF grants that funded my work had an explicit open source
requirement. This was entirely because of a new requirement in a _specific_
NSF program -- search open source at
[http://www.nsf.gov/pubs/2014/nsf14520/nsf14520.htm](http://www.nsf.gov/pubs/2014/nsf14520/nsf14520.htm)
to see it. This was something that a program officer (Dan Katz) at NSF added a
few years ago; I asked him about it a few weeks ago when he visited UW, and he
said it was inspired by when he worked as a researcher at Caltech and he
wanted to open source his work and used grant requirements to do so.

Granting agencies like NSF can have a massive impact on ensuring the work they
fund with tax payer money is made available to tax payers for free. The NSF
SI2 program is a rare new example of exactly this happening in practice today.
I couldn't find any other similar NSF requirements for other NSF programs, but
I am going to hold this up as an example whenever I have a chance to advise
NSF in the future. Little by little things may change.

~~~
jordigh
Wait, I don't understand.

Are the non-free parts of SMC there because the university demands that they
stay non-free or because you want them to? Does this particular grant involve
any of the non-free code you've already written?

Also, the grant speaks about releasing software. Do they consider it a
"release" if you only give web access to the frontend, but keep all of the
backend private?

~~~
wickedlogic
Sadly, the open sourcing of software does not address the patent aspect. It
makes subversion easy... perhaps common place, but is probably not really
enough.

~~~
tankenmate
Unless of course if you put in your grant application that the code will be
licensed under GPLv3 or any other license that requires submittors to provide
a license for patents.

------
rdl
Wow. Universities trying to protect their franchise as businesses (even if
they're non-profit, they pay salaries to the people making this
pronouncement...), rather than advancing their core mission.

Seems a lot like the publishers of journals. Yay! (Perhaps they can die in the
same fire.)

~~~
Alex3917
> Universities trying to protect their franchise as businesses rather than
> advancing their core mission.

While I'm generally skeptical of Bayh-Dole, in part because it incentivizes
universities to fake their research results, I also think their actual points
may be valid. E.g. because the private sector has more money than them to
spend on lawyers, this would leave them unable to enforce their I.P. rights,
which would cause their patents to become basically worthless.

Even if you could make a good case for eliminating the patent system, which I
think would be difficult, undoubtedly it's much more difficult to make a good
argument for why only the super rich should be allowed to own intellectual
property.

~~~
bediger4000
_undoubtedly it 's much more difficult to make a good argument for why only
the super rich should be allowed to own intellectual property._

In that case, Rightsholders become the new aristocracy: a patent or something
is akin to a coat of arms.

------
CalRobert
The universities are one of the biggest problems in all of this. They mostly
exist to siphon funds away from the government and individuals (via subsidized
loans) and spend lavish amounts on administration, all while claiming they
can't come up with $34,000 a year for a professor. Let them rot. They've
somehow convinced people their product is worth more than an individual's own
drive in learning something, and artificially slow education.

~~~
pakled_engineer
President of my university made $600k per year, sold off endowment land for
private condo development at a bargain price (surprise, development corp was a
gov crony corp) then spent the money on lavish dorms and frats only foreign
students could afford. He also chaired a 2 billion research gov public grant
fund where money was used for patenting research and (surprise) sold them to
megacorps that were government cronies. He then claimed we had no money and
had to jack tuition, and allow in banks to shill credit cards to students
(surprise, he used to be on that bank's directors board).

The loser is the student who has to pay ever increasing fees to afford these
giant salaries and siphoning of endowment to cronies.

------
nickysielicki
No surprise there, universities are patent trolls and they stand to lose from
it. Fuck them. I'm a student at UW-Madison. WARF stands for Wisconsin Alumni
Research Foundation, and they're responsible for whoring out patents held by
the school.

WARF was ranked the 5th worst patent troll by business insider in 2012. [1]

[1]: [http://www.businessinsider.com/biggest-patent-holding-
compan...](http://www.businessinsider.com/biggest-patent-holding-
companies-2012-11#5-wisconsin-alumni-research-foundation-warf-4)

------
nicklaf
Eolas, one of the more notorious patent trolls to hit the web, began as a UCSF
spinoff, founded by a UCSF employee in 1994.

Eolas claimed to have invented the first interactive web browsing experience,
and patented[1] the concept of interactive web browser plugins (applets).
Doyle (founder of Eolas) first targeted Microsoft in what would turn into a
long streak of litigation; he initially approached Microsoft with an offer to
license his invention. The company declined, and Doyle sued. After drawn out
legal proceedings, the parties reached a settlement, with a $30.4 million
chunk [2] going to the University of California. Eolas went on to sue[3] 22
other of the largest internet companies for violating the same patent.

Eolas wasn't claiming to have invented "interactive" computer programs in
general, since this would be absurd. Eolas simply had the foresight to be
first in line to file for a patent that combined the idea of interactivity
(via external programs) with the nascent technology of web browsing, which
was, to my knowledge, still "non-interactive" in 1994. That said, Eolas might
not [4] have even been the first to demonstrate the idea of interactive web
browsing. In fact, I'd be surprised if Engelbart's line of research at SRI in
the `60's didn't establish prior art decades before.

Regardless of whichever party happened to come up with an idea as simple as
interactive web browsing, it hardly makes sense to give this party such
sweeping power to extort the rest of the industry for the decade or two that
follow.

[1][https://www.google.com/patents/US5838906](https://www.google.com/patents/US5838906)

[2][http://blog.seattlepi.com/microsoft/2007/10/10/microsofts-
eo...](http://blog.seattlepi.com/microsoft/2007/10/10/microsofts-eolas-
settlement-uc-gets-30-4m/)

[3][http://blog.seattlepi.com/microsoft/2009/10/06/after-
beating...](http://blog.seattlepi.com/microsoft/2009/10/06/after-beating-
microsoft-eolas-sues-everyone-else/)

[4] [http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-
talk/1995JulAug/0446...](http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-
talk/1995JulAug/0446.html)

~~~
throwawaykf05
Just a nit: IIRC their patent didn't cover the idea of "interactivity", but
something more along the line of "plugins", which is what the "external
programs" refer to. Active-X is why they targeted Microsoft.

~~~
nicklaf
Thank you, you are correct--I should have been more careful.

Just claiming the idea of plugins (and not interactive browsing in general) is
less ridiculous, but still dangerous.

------
sehugg
Are we sure this is about "innovation" and not revenue?

[http://www.nature.com/news/universities-struggle-to-make-
pat...](http://www.nature.com/news/universities-struggle-to-make-patents-
pay-1.13811)

~~~
a3n
Yes, s/US innovation/university revenue/g

------
Quanticles
Many successful companies started as university startups working with federal
funds. If the university was not able to patent, then the startups could never
happen. Since startups are credited with being the innovation driver in the
commercial world, killing off all of these startups would have a stifling
effect on innovation in the US.

A similar situation is with the small business innovative research program
(SBIR). The main purpose of this program is to provide federal funds to
perform research in order to help new small businesses grow, which in turn
become large companies or get acquired by large companies. If all federal
research dollars ended up resulting in no patents for the companies performing
the research, then these startups wouldn't exist, and the purpose of the
program would be destroyed.

Everyone agrees that public dollars should result in public benefit. However,
there is more public benefit to be had by creating lots of startups than there
is by creating a bunch of non-patent publications.

The US thrives due to it's technological advancement, which is driven by
startups. Let's be careful to not destroy that benefit.

~~~
droopyEyelids
There is a big leap between 'not being able to patent' and 'startup could
never happen' that you need to explain.

Many, many people create businesses out of open source technologies.

~~~
rayiner
> Many, many people create businesses out of open source technologies.

Many people use open source technologies to _sell some other product._ That's
different from being in the business of building and selling an open source
product.

Say you invent a new kind of power amplifier. You open source it, and don't
patent it. You start selling the chips, and some Korean company immediately
copies it and undercuts you on price. So what's your business model now?

~~~
logfromblammo
That could happen even if you did patent it.

Say you invent a new kind of power amplifier. You spend 3 years securing a
patent and bringing the product to market. You discover that some Korean
company copied the reference implementation found in your patent application.
You also discover that the Chinese manufacturer you licensed to produce your
product has been running ghost shifts to make low-quality knockoffs. Bunnie
dips the chips in fuming nitric acid and posts the photos to the web. You sue
to enforce your patent and discover that the best you can do is to prevent x%
of the knockoffs from entering the US as discrete parts in containerized
shipping through the largest ports. Your amp design somehow shows up in dozens
of low-end consumer products anyway. You silently rage into your ramen
noodles, and your lawyer stops answering your phone calls the same day.

You focus on support services, quality assurance, and brand identity. You
seize the center of the market by determining what the product is. Notice how
well ARM does without a chip fab. Why do companies pay for ARM licenses (oops,
licences--they're a UK company), when they could make OpenCores chips? Because
the other chips are not ARM chips. They might not use the ARM instruction set.
They aren't the same as what's in your iPad. When people lack the ability to
fully comprehend what it is they are buying, they invariably rely at least
partially upon brand reputation. Defending your trademark is far more
important in this context than defending a patent.

~~~
rayiner
People don't buy ARM cores because of the trademark or support services. They
do it because key implementation techniques for the ARM instruction set are
patented, and the high-performance softcores are protected by copyright:
[http://semiaccurate.com/2013/08/07/a-long-look-at-how-arm-
li...](http://semiaccurate.com/2013/08/07/a-long-look-at-how-arm-licenses-
chips). Yes, they support it just like any company supports their products,
but it's not a "free product, pay for support" play like RedHat.

~~~
logfromblammo
People don't buy iPads because of the ARM chips. But if the alternative is a
Xiangdi Industries "10 Tablet" with a zhMIPS CPU and a not-entirely-unlike-
Android OS, the lack of any familiar brand names may influence the consumer to
just pay more for the sure thing (to them).

(I made those names up. Any similarity to actual brands is entirely
coincidental.)

In any case, I was not trying to say that ARM cores are free to use. I was
comparing their business to open hardware, and pointing out that people often
prefer to pay for the ability to not delve too deeply into the details of what
they are buying.

------
chrisBob
Universities are an interesting case in patent reform. By many people's
definitions they would be the patent trolls that we are trying to get rid of:
They are not the inventors, and they don't make anything.

As an engineering student at one of the schools on the list I like that my
school is willing to pay to file a patent with my name on it even if any
revenue would mostly go back to the school.

~~~
hurin
>They are not the inventors, and they don't make anything.

This is highly misleading if not down-right ignorant. Academic research is and
has been absolutely necessary for most of the technologies we use today -
patent's might not be the best way of financing said research, but we should
be clear on the first part; before we roll the barrel on bad administrations
and wasteful spending at universities. The toxic response to universities in
general here on HN is rather astounding.

~~~
totalrobe
Agreed, and it sound like the type of comment made by a clever university
student that hasn't experienced the typical soul crushing workplace.

------
kevin_thibedeau
Read: It would harm the gravy train of patenting government funded research.
Not good for Corporate U.

------
PythonicAlpha
It is worth to note here, that the universities don't speak against patent
reform as such, but against special parts of the current reform.

I am not familiar with the current reform, but problem is the fixation of so
called "patent trolls". Many legitimate patent holders can be easily hurt by a
reform that just is pleasing for the big corporations.

When (for example) patent trolls are identified by the notion "don't produce
the invention", than small inventors (and universities) can be hurt extremely,
since small inventors have to sell their inventions to big corporations, when
the production is out of their reach. Of course, the big corporations will be
happy, when they can just steal such inventions and accuse the inventor as
"patent-troll".

~~~
tmarthal
Right. The one thing that (tangentially related) is the quote "The prospect of
substantially increased financial risk would discourage universities and other
patent holders lacking extensive litigation resources from legitimately
defending their patents".

Do universities really see themselves as the ones "lacking extensive
litigation resources"? I think they don't understand the nature of 'small
inventors'.

~~~
PythonicAlpha
I also can not see universities as big heroes here, but I think the whole
patent discussion is so twisted and biased with factions that cover their real
intentions, that one must be very careful what to support or judge what is a
good development.

Also in our country, we have a long list of "reforms" in different areas --
and "reform" sounds always positive, but in very few areas the so called
"reforms" where directed in the right direction. I thus really got tired of
"reforms". Oftentimes the word "reform" is used by factions that cover their
real agenda ...

------
em3rgent0rdr
Intellectual property is not necessary for innovation and likely hinders
progress.
[http://www.dklevine.com/general/intellectual/against.htm](http://www.dklevine.com/general/intellectual/against.htm)

------
fapjacks
These people are fucking snakes. American universities are becoming part of
the problem. If my tax dollars touch even the paper some research is printed
on, it better be IMPOSSIBLE for that shit to sit behind a paywall or otherwise
allow someone to restrict my ability to access or use it. _THIS GOES FOR
CORPORATE RESEARCH AS WELL_ which uses public funds (or taxpayer-funded
subsidies) which is something nobody ever wants to talk about. I'd also like
to see an explicit line item on a university budget where the money brought in
through patents on research derived from NSF funds is piped back into the
research program. It almost assuredly never is.

------
dkarapetyan
Hold on a second. Research funded by tax payer money is not in the public
domain?

------
jkot
Just to play devils advocate:

One can be pretty innovative if he has to develop CPU without using XOR
operation.

Are there technologies developed solely as alternative to patent? I can think
of PNG x GIF, OGG x MP3, Display Port X DVI...

I would say that patent creates sort of monopol, which forces others to go
with open solutions. Similar situation was when Windows caused Linux to
emerge. Without patents we would be stacked with whatever comes. And that
would be probably badly designed proprietary technology.

~~~
throwawaykf05
Actually, innovation through forced workarounds of patents has long been one
of the reasons for patent systems. Though not originally stated explicitly,
many jurists and economists over time have espoused this line of thought in
support for patents.

~~~
cben
Can you give any pointers? It's plausible to claim patents do little harm
because they _can_ be worked around but saying they bring net benefit because
the _must_ be worked around feels bizarre.

------
pskittle
Anyone know why Harvard and Stanford not on the list?

~~~
Apocryphon
Maybe their endowments are big enough for them to not care about having to
resort to patents to pay their faculty?

~~~
will_brown
I would have thought you are correct. Harvard is sitting on $32B and Stanford
$18.7B in tax-free endowments, the largest and 3rd largest endowments
respectively.

However, Yale is on the list and they have $20.7B (2nd largest). It does seem
disingenuous for Yale to claim "[t]he prospect of substantially increased
financial risk would discourage universities and other patent holders lacking
extensive litigation resources from legitimately defending their patents." Not
a whole lot of businesses are sitting on +$20B in cash period, much less +$20B
tax free.

As a side the top 10 school endowments in 2013 = ~$141B.[1]

[1] [http://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/the-short-
list...](http://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/the-short-list-
college/articles/2015/01/13/10-universities-with-the-largest-financial-
endowments)

------
gr3yh47
really misleading title. they are speaking only of currently pending
legislation specifically, not patent reform in general.

~~~
Ar-Curunir
Yeah, and they're mainly talking about two specific proposals in the currently
proposed bill too. I'm not sure what effect those two proposals would have,
but instead of discussing said proposals the comments here are rambling about
vaguely related issues.

~~~
hckr1292
Welcome to HN :-)

------
logfromblammo
Dear 144 Universities,

I believe I am not alone in holding the opinion that public funds should not
result in private gains. The Bayh-Dole Act of 1980 screwed the taxpaying
public for your benefit. The public is not wrong to ask that it be reversed or
corrected.

If you wish to enjoy the benefits of private research, stop asking for the
grant of public research funding. If you wish to enjoy the benefits of public
research funding, stop asking for the grant of a limited monopoly.

University administration is already treading upon thin ice by employing ever-
increasing numbers of underpaid temporary and part-time employees to undertake
one of the essential and indispensable functions of a university: teaching. At
the same time, tuition charged to students has risen much higher than the rate
of inflation, and student loan debt burdens have skyrocketed.

Thus, I have no sympathy for you. The remedy already available to you for an
increased cost in defense of patents is to produce fewer, more defensible
patents.

The truth of the Bayh-Dole legacy is that it has allowed the profit motive to
corrupt science to an even greater extent than the "publish or perish" culture
and the bias against negative results. You are no longer doing research for
the sake of the advancement of knowledge, but research for the advancement of
the university's revenues, and those motives produce vastly different results
in practice.

Furthermore, you are not rare and privileged centers of innovation.
Advancement in technology has removed certain areas of research from the sole
demesne of universities and national research laboratories to private
corporations, or even to crowd-funded campaigns for a single individual.

Doppler radar: invented before Bayh-Dole.

Web browsers: Berners-Lee testified at the Eolas trial that he did not attempt
to patent the web. Further evidence showed that Berners-Lee had previously
described the U.S. patent system as "incentive for obfuscation" and that the
threshold for patentability is set "ridiculously low." Yes, bringing that up
as an example of university innovation was a great idea. Berners-Lee never
tried to squeeze a dime out of his web browser, and the entire world has
benefited from that generosity and foresight in far greater measure than he
ever could have hoped to keep for himself.

The Internet: invented before Bayh-Dole. Unpatented.

CT scans: invented in 1971, before Bayh-Dole, in the UK.

MRI: invented in 1971, before Bayh-Dole. SUNY chose not to patent it.

FluMist (LAIV): I'm not entirely certain why vaccination is held out as an
example of why university innovation should be patent protected, as Edward
Jenner became a physician through apprenticeship, and the Royal Society did
not even publish his initial reports. FluMist does not seem all that
remarkable an innovation in light of the facts that other influenza vaccines
exist, and the side effects of FluMist are more severe than for injected
vaccines.

GPS: This one was unequivocally driven by the U.S. DoD, and the first
satellite launched before Bayh-Dole. The invention of more accurate timepieces
have always, throughout the whole of history, been driven by navies, for whom
that technology is the Holy Grail of navigation.

Barcodes: This was invented by Woodland and Silver, based upon Morse code and
motion picture soundtracks. Neither were employed by a university at the time.
Their 1952 invention preceded Bayh-Dole.

Could those universities not come up with examples of how PATENTED and
DEFENDED innovations changed the world? Perhaps they might have also done us
the honor of fact-checking their own claims to establish that their examples
were also attributable to a university?

~~~
tzs
> I believe I am not alone in holding the opinion that public funds should not
> result in private gains

How the heck could that ever work? When a commercial vehicle uses a public
road, public funds are resulting in private gains. When a city transit system
buys a bus from a for-profit bus maker, public funds result in private gains.

Most of what public funds are spent on results in private gain.

Did you phrase things more expansively than you meant?

~~~
logfromblammo
You are forgetting that private entities are also members of the public. Just
because one private entity may benefit does not mean others cannot. When the
commercial vehicle uses the public road, it does not exclude anyone else from
using it, except to the extent that it causes traffic congestion. When the
public buys a bus, it has the bus. The company it buys from could have sold
that bus to anyone else who wanted one.

In this case, the private patent-holders take the benefit and exclude the rest
of the public from it.

If you need it to be more clear, public funds should not be used in a manner
that exclusively benefits only a few enumerable private parties. It doesn't
quite roll off the tongue as easily, but there it is.

