• Carighan Maconar@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    42
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    8 months ago

    That’s in fact why some universities patent their research stuff in the first place, to ensure nobody else can. They’ll then make it a policy to take 0€ in licensing fees, but this precludes anybody else from starting to lock the tech behind money.

    Source: My uni back in the days had a few dozen patents for exactly this reason, too.

    • Miaou@jlai.lu
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      3
      ·
      8 months ago

      IANAL but patents rely on originality, meaning a preprint of the original paper is basically enough to make the technology impossible to patent. Well probably more than just the paper I guess.

      • oyo@lemm.ee
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        9
        ·
        8 months ago

        Not anymore. The US switched from a “first-to-invent” system to a “first-to-file.” Prior art doesn’t matter for shit.

      • Nithanim@programming.dev
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        5
        ·
        8 months ago

        I learned it too that it has to be “new”. Most likely it is a hell of a lot easier to directly patent it and have a strong legal foundation than just wait around and scramble for proof if it needs to be. Probably also helps being picked up by the industry.

    • stoly@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      2
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      8 months ago

      Yep. At max a university will take back its investment amount so that they can operationalize this sort of activity.