By protecting research ideas through use of the laws governing IP, scientists and/or their universities, are able to maintain control over the idea and influence its ultimate end use. You can choose to license the idea/technology to willing partners (and earn an income to fund your research). In this scenario, you can structure the deal to direct the partners on how they must apply the technology/idea. You can also make the (poor) choice of selling the idea outright for a fee, but then you run the risk of that idea being purchased and 'shelved', never to be used by anyone. You can protect the idea and do nothing (a potential choice, but a bad one), but then why even seek IP protection in this scenario. History is replete with numerous scientists who pioneered ideas (that we benefit from today) and failed to protect their idea, only to watch others get scientific accolades and funding for something they invented. When scientists fail to control their ideas through the use of IP laws, they lose professionally (lack of acknowledgement), financially (missed funding opportunities), and personally (broken friendships and relationships). People take advantage of scientists because of their giving and fair nature, so scientists (engineers, physicists, mathematicians, chemists, biologists, etc.) need (IP) protection because everyone does not 'play the game fairly' like scientists try to do. Even if you do nothing after getting IP protection for your ideas, it is an entry in your resume/CV that is a testament to your scientific expertise and intellect.

These are very tough questions, Sam...

I cannot give answers, only some educated guesses on the basis of the Ph.D. course I followed at Trinity College in Dublin called "Research & Business" that brought many experts to share their thoughts with us students on this topic:

- one of the lecturers said that IP protection is in general not really worthy if you do not have the economic and legal strength to defend your patent: if you have something really valuable for private companies and you are a small spin-off company or research organization, you'll be better off to sell your IP to big corporations and use the money to progress further in research.

- the bridge between an important research result and a working new application is very very wide. less than 1 out of 10 scientific big successes can become commercial successes. And for this work you need dedicated people and large economic resources: an expert in technology transfer is NOT a scientific researcher.

- if you go to a company saying that your technology (not your basic research, I mean the complete, working and tested application) is 3 times better than today standard, they will throw your work in the dust-bin: they already have in-house a 3 times better technology ready, you can get some interest only if you have something 10 times better!

I don't think research "ideas" are worth protecting, what can be interesting is the protections of research final applications. But, still, it depends if you want to be a researcher and leave the commercial exploitation of your ideas to others or you want to become an entrepreneur and do it yourself. I feel this a choice necessary to be made.

regards

Luca

When you speak about intellectual property, you ought to take into account that the concept is not the same in common-law jurisdictions and in civil-law ones. For the latter, intellectual property excludes patents and trade-marks, but, more to the point, is mainly an inalienable, perpetual moral right, the ownership of the region of the world of ideas the author has discovered (or invented, if you like, which provides such a property with a Lockean foundation).

I cleave to intellectual property in this sense. Whether or not I gain a penny with my academic output, I feel entitled as claiming it as mine and to settle on what conditions other people can use my work.

Yes for sure,

I my self was abused my colleagues and think that some time the line between the work with colleagues and intellectual roberry is very thin. The question should be expanded not only to real patenting of the ideas but also to exchange of ideas.

Dear Mr Sam,

As rightly identified by Luca Seravalli, your questions are quite tough, yet interesting. Protection of industrial rights under Intellectual property law depend on two things: the nature of the subject-matter to be protected and the choice of protection desired. In relation to subject-matter you have copyrights for artistic and literary works, you have trademarks for identification and distinction of producers as regards goods and services, and you have patents and trade-secrets for scientific and technical ideas. In relation to choice, although the nature of the subject-matter for which protection is sought largely determines what specie of intellectual property right you get protection under (whether it will be patents in terms of technical ideas or copyrights in matters of literary concerns), in respect of technical ideas only you could decide whether a patent suits your circumstances or trade secrets.

I assume your questions have bearing on technical ideas since you have alluded to R&D. The subtlety or indecipherability of a technical idea will be determinant of whether a patent is considered appropriate as against taking the trade secret route of protection. If the substance of the technical idea is such that it could not be discovered or reversely engineered, then a trade secret might be great for the firm as it does not require public disclosure of the idea to earn protected exclusivity as required of patents. If however it a firm does not want to expose itself to the risk of reverse engineering, it could seek patent protection. Patents have a great deal economic value to a firm as they create public notice of a corporation's technical placing or potential economic position. That notwithstanding, the technical cum economic nature of the idea itself will have significance over a decision on whether to pursue a patent or not. The technical idea might be merely incremental, appreciably an advance over the state of the art or it might be a radical one.

Obviously a merely incremental advance will hardly ever be worthy of commercial value (but then it might!); particularly as it will be a dependant patent, blocked by the previously existing patent(s) that it adds improvement to and as such its commercialization potentials will be weak. That which appreciably advances the state of the art will indubitably have commercial value, for even if it were to be blocked by previously existing patents, it will have a huge market leverage (as previously existing patent holders will want to align with it) and also it will enjoy competition/anti-trust law cushions. A radical invention might bring about ambivalent economic perceptions. It might be adjudged as unpredictable and such risky to invest on. On the other hand, it might be considered to be an unassailable market leader. Notwithstanding this, radical inventions should be patented.

"All.about Research- I Hear ,I Forget; I See, I Rememer; I Do, I Understand; I Think,I am doing Research." If we analyse this carefully,We will get the answer to the question on the protection of Research Ideas by Intelectual property rights -whether it is worthwhile or not.

Very relevant set of questions, but as the previous participants mentioned, difficult to answer.

Personally, I feel that there should be a stronger bridge between the Industry and R&D (not just the in-house R&D, but with the Universities and Research Institutes, where active research is being pursued), that will channelize application research into developing need-based innovations and patents. Otherwise, application research remains a mere waste of public resource and a patent only an extra line in the CV. If there is greater networking and laws are framed to regulate confidentiality and tech transfer issues, I feel that collaboration between industry and R&D will result in fruitful patenting. Ultimately the disclosure is for the benefit of the society!

In today's world we want to put everything in the market. we produce knowledge for commercialization, not for public welfare. This is unfortunate. Historically in all cultures knowledge was considered as public good. Example, Indian Vedas are the oldest text authoritatively a repository of all systems of knowledge from astronomy, biology, geology, physics to space sciences. It was never claimed to be put under any IPR. KN Bhatt

Rresearch and development are two sides of the same coin which need to be taken together.If one is the seed,the other is the sapling that germinates out of the seed.under favourable conditions.When you choose the right seed then it is wothwhile to protect the research ideas such that the technology ,like thNuclear technology is developed,aquired,transfered and exploited for a good cause.But when it is over exploited or misused ,then only the question of protecting the intellectual property and its due share of recognition and reward in monetary terms arises.

Prof.S.P.Chary

[email protected]

IP is not always effective to protect idea , particularly for biotechnology. Finding fertile ground by Scott A .Shane has discussed this issue well I think.

Dear Kandal,

You hold that inventions coming out of universities on the footing of government funding should neither be patented nor protected by IP. This is, without being trying to be rude, economically unwise to hold. It's a trite fact that the place of the university is to advance knowledge and ensure its dissemination. But do you not think it will poor of sagacity if universities created industrially applicable knowledge and allowed it to be free, when they could have propertized and exploited such (potential) industrial property through licensing to corporations and businesses, and then re-invest the the profits acquired towards the advancement of knowledge through research? In this epoch of global economic stymies where public/government funding to universities and other public tertiary institutions suffers sharp decline, it only behooves universities and institutions of higher learning to find alternative means of finance: one of which no doubt is to 'commodify' created technical knowledge. Additionally, such engagements by universities will induce further (aggressive) researching, stimulate knowledge growth and in turn create a plethora of social benefits. This will also allow for partnership between universities and industry and that will be good for society in immeasurable ways.

Dear Kadal,

A university is not a commercial enterprise, but why does it impose tuition fees on students? It has to earn some money from the dissemination and enhancement of knowledge so as to fund its running costs and other obligations. I understand that the idea of being a university yet commercializing inventions might seem paradoxical, but in fact these easily reconcilable. A university can create 'economic value' in a variety of ways and re-direct the rewards earned towards further educational pursuits or ends; such as funding research, building infrastructures and acquiring scientific facilities etc. We shouldn't be dyed in the wool of the past and say that because the traditional role of the university is to enhance knowledge then it must have no play in industrial applications and engagements.

You further asked me to justify the idea behind granting a patent to a person to the exclusion of others. The answer is simple. It is to ensure that a person or entity who has spent money towards enhancing technical knowledge using his time, finance and resources, and has disclosed to the public the technical steps behind his ideas is able to get temporary market monopoly so that he could recover the costs expended on arriving at his technical ideas after due research. This is also to encourage as much persons to embark upon research and the creation of outcomes that solve the vast array of technical problems confronting mankind in daily life. We have seen the beneficial impact of the patent system in on advancements in areas of science; from pharmaceuticals, to medicine, to IT, to electronics, to Biomedicine, and Biotechnology, among other areas.

If technical ideas were freely available for all to use, investments on products will be very low as manufacturers and investors will not be willing to spend in matters wherein their chances of recovering sunk expenses will be at a competitive struggle. Several companies would have gone bankrupt or insolvent if there weren't a patent system to allow them have market monopoly over their own products so as to gain market control.

Additionally, having a patent doesn't necessarily only one person will be able to use the technology or science behind it. A entity (such as a university or its professor) could have a patent but license it to as much people as considered economically advantageous or reasonable.

If you plan to patent a technology, you must absolutely keep it a secret until you file.

Well I think an inventor or a researcher that has spent alot of time, effort and sacrifice in producing something important and worthwhile, should be entitled to some level of reward. Also in this age of information technology, if your findings from a research effort are not protected, next thing you see is that your ideas have been stolen and you end up not getting any recognition. Granted that knowledge should be shared but the inventor has put in some effort that needs some recompense

Dear Kadal,

The answer isn't hard to supply. If corporations aren't interested in your invention it means it has meager or minuscule market worth. And this goes a long way in impugning the technical advance your invention bears over prevailing state of technical knowledge.

Publishing and patenting aren't necessarily inharmonious. You could file a patent application and upon lodging the application go on to publish the idea. It does not destroy the novelty of your idea invention at the patent office.

The real impact of research is like the real impact of prayer: you don't measure its full repercussions with statistics. Researchers however are seldom aware of their effective role in the process which contributes to obscure the mostly ambiguous notion most of them have of the protection of the results of intellectual production. Impreciseness due in the main by the researcher's lack of consciousness of his activity as a 'relation between producers', thereby giving universities, entrepreneurs and research organizations ample space to establish freely, in commodity terms, a mutual equivalence between the products of his work. This happens basically because researchers still consider their 'goods' not as such but as 'unique pieces', that is not in terms of the work materialized in such goods. By doing so

researchers become increasingly exposed to exploitation and to their own decharacterization as producers and holders of propriety rights. Hence naive ideas such as "available data indicate that a large majority of intellectual property never get commercialized".

When reading the previous comments, t seems to me that none of the commenters ever filed (defended and commercialized) a patent. So may I be allowed to comment from the industry side of view, at least from my personal (indutrial) point of view.

I have filed quite a few of patents (you can find via my home page, if interested in which area), commercialized and actively (successfully) defended against patent infringements. Also I have licensed my technology quite a bit. (that's as a background)

I read this here: " If corporations aren't interested in your invention it means it has meager or minuscule market worth."

- sorry, wrong: first, most corporations are not innovative, and if, then they behave according to "not invented here" = we are not interested.

If you made a valuable invention while doing research in university (to determine, what is valuable, is a very complicated and fuzzy task, I can not give any general method to follow, the minimum is: you need to know the market where it could be applied, and you will see that many inventions never went to the market where they had been intended for, but finally to somewhere else, including some of the mine!), you should file a patent.

Then you have 1 year time to decide whether or not you will continue and file the patent globally (your university has to decide because they own the patent, I assume). During this year, you should study markets and potential investors / licensees / development and technology transfer partners.

You also can publish then, and you can add more weight to your patent by adding more experimental data, more aspects.

(part 2 to follow)

(part 2)

If you do not have a patent application filed (but only published), then the chance to find a serious partner for market introduction is minimal: why should a company invest money for a new product or technology which, after it is brought to the market, everybody can copy without having had the pain to practise all the errors during development?

Just copy the first good products and follow the market pioneer, take his market share for much less investment!

Hence, without patents, innovation is slowed down! freely available innovations do not speed up innovations, but slow the innovation process down!

I would assume not "less than 1 out of 10 scientific breakthroughs", but less than 1 out 100, 1,000 or 10,000 good ideas make it to the market. The way to market is hard, dry, tough and stony. This is another reason why companies are reluctant to just quickly adopt a new idea. Too many risks!

Therefore, the decision whether to file or not to file a patent is a tough decision, but I recommend: file first, then do all the thinking and market research during the following year!

Also universities should seriously consider patenting, but what I saw a lot in the past: many university patents are naive. Some PhD student or professor thinks "what a great idea I have!", files a patent and believed "that's it", where is the market? and does not know

- the demand does not exist

- or similar products exist

- or the invention is far from being mature, far from being practicable

- maybe only in milligram scale, some idea works, but already scale up to 1 kg costs a fortune, not to talk about tons or thousand toons scale

- similar or identical patents already published

so, the necessary preparation work was not done.

My answer to the title question is: this is a very complicated field, absolutely worth to be seriously thought about when you encounter such a situation.

Good luck!

Good afternoon Sam, you have raised an interesting question. While not explicitly stated in your question, I assume you are asking about Patents (as opposed to Trade Marks, Copyright, etc.). Also, you refer to the protection of an "idea". However, it is not clear, what exactly you mean by an idea. This might seem straight-forward, but its not. Different Patent legislations go to some lengths to set out what constitutes patentable subject-matter (e..g. invention Vs discovery under European Patent law).

Also, there are generally multiple reasons for filing Patent Applications - not all related to direct commercialisation by way of product release. After all, its worth remembering what a Patent actually provides - a negative or exclusionary monopoly, rather than a positive right. Indeed, in the corporate world few Patents are actually used overtly in products. Instead they form the basis of more complex commercial strategies structured around cross-licensing, defensive tactics etc.

Also, at a policy level, publicly funded Universities are coming under increasing pressure to justify their claims on an already over-stretched public purse. Governments are demanding more of Universities. One of these demands is that Universities must take a more active role in supporting national sustainable economic growth. Commercialisation of research is no longer just about generating income for Universities. Instead, at a policy-level, the focus of these activities is shifting to demand-driven industrial engagement, to support national innovation activities. Patents are just one of many metrics used for assessing innovation activity.

Coming back to your question, there are many different reasons for filing Patent Applications. But as some of the previous authors have mentioned, budgetary considerations must prevail. Furthermore, an understanding of the intended commercial use of the eventual Patent must form a central element in the drafting of the Patent Claims.

Mrs. Hartnet, I can agree to almost everything you said, except for " budgetary considerations must prevail".

In addition to what I said above, I think, the major roadblock for a successful and productive patenting strategy of a university (or a research group) is market research, patent research, study of prior art, and a thorough and self-critical investigation whether or not the "idea" one has is really already deep and mature enough to be *published* in form of a patent application (18 months later, it will be public!),

and whether or not one can relly believe (and convince somebody external, a company in that market, that this "idea" is solid enough to be scaled up and developed into a real product.

Too many researchers (sorry, just my feeling) are filing too many nice but useless and immature "ideas". The (self-)critical filter which should be used for scientific publications must also (and maybe even more!) applied to patent applications.

Why "even more"? because a patent theoretically should only be granted if the invention can be *practised* and *has practical use* (I am not citing legal wording, but its meaning), not if it is interesting or some new knowledge.

Hi Berhard

Thanks for your message. My apologies, perhaps I didn't express myself very well in relation to the budgetary issue. I agree with you that one of the many challenges faced in University IP harvesting and management is that patent applications are often filed too early. What I mean in relation to budgeting, is that the costs of filing a Patent Application represent only the tip of the ice-berg in terms of the overall cost of prosecuting a Patent through to grant. However, the filing of the Patent Application sets the clock ticking for the timeline within which choices have to be made regarding these costs. Thus, particularly for cash-strapped SMEs there can sometimes be a friction between the desire to file a Patent Application as early as possible (subject to the needs of achieving a robust description of the invention) and the financial circumstances (at that time) of the organisation.

When working with a limited Patent budget, it often isn't possible to file Patent Applications for every presented invention; and a pragmatic approach is required when selecting the ideas for which to file Patent Applications. This pragmatic approach is required right through the process of prosecuting Applications (e.g. deciding on which countries to file in at 12mth period, or if filing a PCT Application at 30/31mth period etc.) and must be cognisant of the external technology and commercial changes occurring over this period.

I also agree with your comments regarding the filtering process for potential patent submissions as opposed to academic publications. But I would almost go further than the "practicality" assessment. I would suggest that the assessment should include at least some consideration of the degree of "inventive step" .

My apologies again Bernhard, I spelled your name incorrectly in my previous message... I hope you don't take offence.

Margaret

@Bernhard...

Well said..

Dear Bernhard,

I find your response to be interesting and illuminating, particularly as you have (as claimed) been into patenting at first hand. But my response is pivotally in relation to your position that there is no correlation between the technical advance an invention supplies and its appeal to firms. With due respect, you are fundamentally wrong. I do understand however that a simple innovation (though not an invention) COULD win immense market appeal due to long awaited technical effects (however little) that it produces. However, such simple innovations and merely incremental inventions rarely ever win the interest of corporations because such minute improvements are easily overtaken by sequential improvements in technology. It will simply be impolitic of a firm to expend its resources on the development of such products when its market value or leadership is no doubt transitory.

You hold too that firms are not innovative. That too is wrong. You have failed to distinguish between innovativeness and inventiveness. An innovation relates merely to the search for new solutions to problems, while inventiveness relates to the search for new solutions to problems which bears the quality of being such that no person in that given area of science or technology could have thought or conjectured upon it. Firms are generally innovative, although they may not be inventive. But then that which is thought to be merely innovative might in fact qualify as an invention! I do understand however that firms not generally inventive as it is demonstrated by researched information that start-ups and hobbists (independent inventors) create or are most likely to create the most innovative outcomes generally. That said however, corporations keep in touch, more than start-ups and hobbists, with the state of advancement in technical advancement and with market needs. They invest in Research and Development more than independent inventors. And it is to corporations that start-ups and independent inventors mostly sell or license their inventions. I had said in a previous comment, just as you have, that radical inventions create skepticism in the minds of corporations because they are risky. This doesn't however mean they don't have inherent significant commercial value!

The moral of my response is: good inventions are inventions that have indisputable market value! An invention rarely wastes where it has high technical quality. If however you go by american conditions where inventions waste in thousands without being commercialized, the reason is simple: THE AMERICAN PATENT SYSTEM HAS THE POOREST (AMONGST LEADING PATENT OFFICES IN THE WORLD) METHODS AND APPROACHES TO DETERMINING INVENTIVE STEP. It is for this reason that you have an army of patents issued in the USA with little market worth. I recently read a paper (http://ec.europa.eu/internal_market/indprop/docs/patent/patqual02032011_en.pdf) where this was properly discussed.

Mrs. Hartnet, no problem with wrongly spelling my name, anyway in such a discussion we should not look too much on wording, grammar, name spelling, just freely discuss.

I agree with what you said, and regarding "at least some consideration of inventive step", I want to add: this is the very first and most important question! (this is why I asked that the patent and other literature in that respective field must be known, otherwise quite easily the patent office can find there was no inventive step or only a very small one, because the "invention" is already state of the art or easily deductable from public knowledge.

Mr. Abdussalam,

thanks for your comments (I did not understand where I am fundamentally wrong). You wrote far above: "If corporations aren't interested in your invention it means it has meager or minuscule market worth." Already innovation history will tell you that many (if not most) companies first overlook the value of an invention (also the contrary happens: over-estimation of a value).

Plus, many companies have the attitude that anything which was "not invented here" (but presented from outside, maybe from a university) is not interesting. Plus, nobody can ever approach ALL potentially intersted companies.

Therefore, if after some time there are no companies interested yet, this does not mean there is no market value! Maybe simply overlooked or talked to the wrong companies!

re "sequential improvements": the introductory question was about patents, I was not answering to a question whether or not or in which case small improvements should be patented (I have an opinion on this as well, but it goes too far for this thread here). Here we are talking about patents, and in my view filing a patent (both from university as from companies) requires an inventive step, and for my own patents, I have set the requirement that the inventive step must be significant (and I asked my patent lawyers all the time to very critically search in addition to my own search so we would not get surprised by a negative ruling of the patent office).

I agree that companies (at lest the successful ones) are innovative but not necessarily inventive (again, I was talking about patenting aspects here only). I also agree that " good inventions are inventions that have indisputable market value", the question is only always: how does one know this during the time when one wants to decide whether to file a patent or not, especially (as it was asked here) for universities. This is why I suggested to be more diligent, do more search in patent and technical literature, market etc, and be more self-critical.

Finally, I totally agree with your statement about the US patent system, I am glad that I did all my priority applicaitons in Germany, get German, then EU patent first, and then fight against the ignorant US patent office statements ... it is a pain. I have never understood how they rule when issuing patents which are totally non-inventive, and refuse to issue patents which have a significantly high inventive step. already the technical background (in my case: chemistry) is so poor, mostly, the patent office clearks even did not understand what I was talking about ...

Dear Mr Bernhard,

Nice response. I still hold firmly that you are fundamentally wrong with your position that firms do cast doubts on the commercial viability of an invention simply on the basis of where such invention originates (example because it is from a university or from a complementary or competing firm). That is outrightly an untenable a statement to make. Firms and universities partner greatly on patent commercialization; in fact with firms looking up to universities for patents and sponsoring research at universities. Why would Caltech, Stanford University, John Hopkins, Wisconsin and Columbia etc, make huge revenues from patent dealing and technology transfer arrangements with Corporations? Also why would firms like Pfizer, Novartis, AstraZeneca engage in technological collaboration and technology transfer contracts with start-ups if they were skeptical of their inventions?

My point is: the origin of an invention has ABSOLUTELY no connection with the perception of its worth. The merit of an invention lies in its perceived economic cum technical value.

Taking the question from a slightly different direction....

One of the many challenges I meet when establishing the legal frameworks for large-scale University-industry collaborations, is defining the "background IP", namely the knowledge and know-how that a party is bringing to the table (as opposed to foreground IP, namely the IP created in the course of the collaboration). Patent Applications serve as a useful means of documenting that background IP . To that extent, Patent Applications serve almost as a currency to signpost mutual respect of individual parties pre-existing property. I'm not suggesting that there aren't other ways of achieving this effect, but the rigorous discipline that goes into drafting (including a robust assessment of inventive step) a high quality Patent specification, can be very useful in this regard.

However, one of the major misunderstandings of Patents in University tech transfer, is that Patents on their own are hugely attractive to industry (i.e. that the negotiation of licenses is sufficient). In my experience (and I agree with the previous authors on this point), University IP is typically associated with very early stage technology; and Patent documents simply cannot record all of the details needed to further develop the invention. Consequently, industry is frequently more interested in the know-how (and other forms of intangible Intellectual Assets embodied in the creator) than in the Patents alone. A blended and joined-up approach to using IP with intangible IA is more appropriate in these types of engagements.

Dear Margarett,

I agree with you that university inventions are usually early stage technology. This is true given that universities come from pure science or 'blue-sky' research backgrounds, as opposed to industrial inventors who are more concerned with applied science and technology. That being said, inasmuch as universities could enjoy a wide array of protection from other IP regimes, patents serve as the 'bread and butter' of legal protection for technical ideas (which have industrial applicability). Although a patent document may not disclose the entirety of an inventive concept and its ancillaries, it (patenting) is the best start point for any institution in the commercialization of technical knowledge. Other IP protections are merely complementary, though valuable.

The patents are even bought by companies from researchers to put the technology in dark and hence avoiding new products & to boost sales of their conventional monopoly

This may happen in some very rare cases, but mainly this is a fairy tale, nice for talking about in a beer pub, but not seriously.

I want to make a significant amendment to the question above. Ideas can not be protected by IPR law, only a concrete result of an idea, such as an innovative product, or process, a song, a book, an article... Ideas are free to circulate even if they are new/completely original. There is no such thing as monopoly on new ideas!

By protecting research ideas through use of the laws governing IP, scientists and/or their universities, are able to maintain control over the idea and influence its ultimate end use. You can choose to license the idea/technology to willing partners (and earn an income to fund your research). In this scenario, you can structure the deal to direct the partners on how they must apply the technology/idea. You can also make the (poor) choice of selling the idea outright for a fee, but then you run the risk of that idea being purchased and 'shelved', never to be used by anyone. You can protect the idea and do nothing (a potential choice, but a bad one), but then why even seek IP protection in this scenario. History is replete with numerous scientists who pioneered ideas (that we benefit from today) and failed to protect their idea, only to watch others get scientific accolades and funding for something they invented. When scientists fail to control their ideas through the use of IP laws, they lose professionally (lack of acknowledgement), financially (missed funding opportunities), and personally (broken friendships and relationships). People take advantage of scientists because of their giving and fair nature, so scientists (engineers, physicists, mathematicians, chemists, biologists, etc.) need (IP) protection because everyone does not 'play the game fairly' like scientists try to do. Even if you do nothing after getting IP protection for your ideas, it is an entry in your resume/CV that is a testament to your scientific expertise and intellect.

After this long sequence of extremely interesting answers, it's reassuring to find Eric Hall rescuing the notion of intellectual production ("research ideas") or property from a state of confusion in which copyright is opposed to trademarks and these to patents etc. Confusion generated by the all too common urge of intellectual producers (researchers or scientists, if you will) to consider what they achieve as 'unique pieces' and not as the result of productive relations. No wonder they are "taken advantage" by those who would not "play the game fairly", those scoundrels that are all too ready to make the most of our "giving and fair nature". In truth, our nature is far from being just and generous, just as the game is not fair at all and very likely to turn against us even when we do the most to protect our 'goods'. To step out of this conundrum we need to reach much beyond individual experiences on the transfer from research ideas to commodities.

@Pedro...

Well said.. this situation is especially worse in so-called "world-class" institutions, which are infested by world-class crooks and charlatans ...

@Petrova...

Don't be disheartened.. they stole just ONE idea of yours.. but I am pretty sure that there will be many more innovations & ideas in your head. Every cloud has a silver lining.

Pedro, I agree with what you said, but I think a good knowledge of individual experiences is useful for addressing the issues you raised.

I find this discussion very interesting as well! I understand now what you are after, it's what European lawyers label as protection of weak parties. In agreements between:

* employer (research institute) and employee (researcher)

* small enterprise (such as a private laboratory) and big corporation etc the weak party must be protected by law. However this protection is not sufficient in reality.

* loan taker and loan giver (or other financial relations of the type)

Why? Because the political frame in which law is construed does not admit some facts of real life, that for instance that the relation between an employer and an employee is a relation of domination. Even in situations where you did everything to prevent them from using information produced by you outside the frame of a contract and the contract contains confidentiality clauses that the other party is not allowed to use that information in any way, the reality is that they would still afford to violate these clauses, while the weak party is still not able to enforce them.

If you insist on protection of ideas, what I can think about is protection of business secrets or of know-how or pre-contractual disclosure. In this context I must underline that even when we search for jobs we are exposed in many ways. Identity stealing is a current problem another one is the fact that when you need some form of financing via salary or otherwise you must say for what and explain to them your plan. In some domains this disclosure is sensitive because what can happen is that they say NO to your project but use the information and exploit it on their own. We need better laws to deal with these issues. The labour laws that we have now are outdated because they are especially constructed for a usual worker (an industry worker, a school teacher, a nurse etc). What the flexibility frame of thinking brought to us in the '80ties is insecurity of the small independent workers, such as private innovators and patent owners. IPR might be bad, but only in the hands of the BIG and POWERFUL. Otherwise is necessary.

yes, that would be great. I think there would be a database of research ideas and at least the second researcher should refer to that if they use the idea.

A professor at Amsterdam University has stolen my idea, and the only thing I asked was to give an acknowledgement and refer to my earlier research. They do not even want to do this.

It's actually funny sad that the copy-pasters receive all the glory. School is also about domination and injustice. We learn this already in primary school.

What's more nobody will ever believe you. Some years ago we had a reportage from Sweden showing how Chinese and Indian students were exploited by professors not only for the usual thing ie research slaves but also for housekeeping and small reparations, a garage a s o

The discussion somehow drifts away from the original intention (which I assume Sam Adeloju had). Anyway, I continue on the new path as well, unless Sam calls us back on track.

As Emanueal Matei already pointed out, "Ideas can not be protected by IPR law, only a concrete result of an idea", hence a patent application must always describe RESULTS, and if there is no experiment yet, then there can either be no patent application, or the "results" described therein are fake.

Personally, I don't like to see that people complain somebody has stolen their idea, and how unfair the world is. Yes, the world is unfair - do you want to continue to complain about it, or fight against it or stand it? Everybody can decide himself, but my suggestion is to stop complaining but think about how to act and defend himself.

There are 2 options how to individually and personally protect an idea (and to protect it so that one can later prove it as well and still has all the rights):

describe and write down your idea the best you can, go to

a) a patent lawer and let it be filed; within 1 year you must decide whether to let it be dropped or you continue with an international application; you can any time revise and alter and file additional applications as a continuation; this is only possible if you are not employed and hence your idea does not belong to your employer

b) a notary public and let him certify that this is your idea.

Then in case of a conflict with a professor or somebody else who seems he wants to steel your idea, you first indicate you have some official proof that it was your idea (make sure that the document can prove this, things are changing even within one year, also memory changes about what was the idea 1, 2 or 3 years ago like, how well was it described, what is the result of the research now?);

- in case the document can support you, you indicate you can show the document

- in some tougher case, you can go public and prove that your idea was stolen.

I have seen cases when inventions never came to market (and thus into wide use) because they were not patented. Companies won't spend amounts on product development when other companies could copy and market the product for a much lower cost.

Idea earlier rejected only to be researched and published later without the knowledge the original researcher. When it was exposed nobody actually believed the complainant.

I am convinced that it can happen, Othman because unfortunately people are ruled by prejudgements. If it happens to have on one side a young graduate and on the other am eminent Professor (exactly as I gave the example from Sweden), nobody will believe the young graduate. This is why in a case like that you need to bring very solid proof. When it's about laboratory studies and things like that, it is easier to prove because experiments must be registered chronologically and rigorously. If we just talk about a thesis or something purely abstract where the ideas are more central than the factual background (that one being known to the public) in this case, it is very possible to exploit young talented people. The latter need a place, need to prove themselves, need a chance to do that and have a lot of energy to invest. They want to be part of the system and it is awful that the people with a solid position in that system instead of helping them to settle, try to use them as 'extra low paid hands'.

I agree with Bernhard that the position of a victim is not a good start, but there must be limits to what it is acceptable in a modern society. In the Swedish case people (not the PhD students involved) paid attention to what happened and they reported to a famous TV program and in this way the abuse was disclosed. Not the police, not the school, but the media and the general public solved in fact the case. They leave the issue to the authorities after they already know and have proof at hand. If the risk to be caught exists, then they will think twice next time.

Another prejudgement is that highly educated people do not commit such crimes. In other branches a similar abuse would have been more 'credible'. I have seen that the idea of genuine competitiveness, of an actual talent race does not exist (unfortunately, this is the spirit that I am most connected with). It's a race for maintained privileges at any price. Laziness is encouraged.

I agree with the explanation given byErick Hall and vote for it - [email protected]

While I do not disagree with Emanuela and Bernhard that a research idea cannot be patented unless it is backed up by results, it is important to clarify that there must FIRST be an invention idea which often comes from someone or a group of people. It is true also that the process of inventiveness is where the idea is tested, proven, refined etc. So there are two key distinct aspects to invention: (a) origination/ generation of invention idea and (b) experimentation/testing of ideas. I think it is absolutely important to clarify these because it is crucial in deciding who is an inventor and who is not. While not disagreeing or rejecting claims of stolen ideas that have been made, there is also a flip side to this when people claim they are inventors when all they have done is assist in directed experimentation to prove an invention idea. There is clearly a distinction between directed experimentation and independent experimentation that must be taken into account. Even this is not so clear cut as the appointed experimenter or researcher may bring in new inventive idea to make the invention work.

I think a lot of the concerns being expressed raise question about how universities and other organisations go about the INVENTION PROCESS. The best way, in my view, is that when a claim for an invention is made and to be processed, all the names of researchers (senior and junior staff) involved in the origination and experimentation of the invention must be put to an independent assessor, external to the organisation, such an experienced patent attorney to determine who the inventor(s) is/are. What happens with such a process is that people who thought they should be included as an inventor will be advised that just doing experiments guided and directed by a supervisor does not qualify someone to be an inventor. On the other hand, the process will correct a situation where a supervisor thinks he is the sole inventor to become a shared inventor or, in extreme cases, not to be included at all because of a lack of contribution to the invention idea.

So the key issue for universities and organisations is to review their INVENTION PROCESS and make sure it is FAIR to all parties involved in generating invention idea. It appears from what a lot of people are saying, this is often not the case. If you feel strongly about this, I suggest you extend the discussion beyond RG to your departments, schools, faculties, universities and organisations to get the PROCESS corrected.

Sam, I fully agree, and you described the complexity of the invention process well. The invention itself is an *idea*, a patent requires the description of the idea and the experimental / test results, and the characteristic aspects / elements of the new invention (product or / and process).

Anyone who has an inventive idea (or believes so) and has doubts that his idea or his contribution to the invention may be "stolen", can proceed as I described above and document his ideas. A laboratory notebook may help, but for key ideas, a notary public or a "security" patent application may be better.

I also fully agree that the ones who run guided experiments are not the inventors, but they may also contribute in case they may say "why don't we make such other experiment or change the conditions considerably", and if such an advice ("idea") leads to the solution and would later become a characteristic element of the invention description, then also these guided experimentors are co-inventors.

Like all good things, IPR can be abused, namely used for a different purpose that it has been initially designed to fulfil. The type of abuse is different depending on the level and the situation. Not all abuses are illegal, since as everyone knows fairness and law are never congruent. They only might try to tend to a point of convergence, they never reach there.

What we have today in all the modern systems of justice is a situation where discrimination is no longer direct or indirect, but it is systemic and in this case a court can not provide justice. I give you an example.

1. We don't hire emigrants (direct discrimination)

2. We only hire native speakers (or as-good- as native speakers) (indirect discrimination).

3. We are a fair employer who favours the equality of employment opportunity

(possible systemic discrimination)

In a systemic discrimination frame we declare that we are the good ones, the politically correct ones, but we don't take this nice principle into account at all when we hire, we still discriminate, our door is not open to all and the statistics shows that. Certain jobs are reserved to certain privileged categories in practice. No one admits such a thing. How can you ever prove that in a specific case?

The same thing happens also in the case described by Sam, namely the injustice is inbuilt in the system and even if you as an individual are cautious and smart, you can't win over the system. The cleverness is only about adaptation to a unjust system, accommodation to it , until in the end we no longer sense that our working capacity is misused, but we feel clever because we have a place in the system.

I need to explain one more thing (about the connection discrimination-abuse/unfair use). In my opinion there is a connection between the systemic discrimination and the abuse, since the first opens the door for the later. The victim is first subject to systemic discrimination and finds him/herself in a vulnerable position. Under these circumstances people can be tricked into deals that are not favourable to them at all, they do not afford to be as cautious any more and then they fall into some trap placed by some opportunist.

The problem that I see is that we can't deal with the causes, we only react against the abuse (if ever proved) but do nothing about the causes. We don't revise the system or only do that superficially.

I think that what you call abuse and unfair use can not be prevented by any law or "rules of conduct" or else; IP protection and hence also protection of personal contributions to inventions ("ideas") can only be protected by the one who have them / who contribute.

An institution (like a university) can help by informing, by providing assistance to potential victims. But those need to come and ask for help by themselves, and everybody is adult and should be able to do so, university and companies are not kindergardens where everybody needs to get a nurse to take care of him / her.

Again, I do not like people to complain about they experienced their ideas had been stolen. Everybody needs to protect him/herself, and can do so! (as I described above).

I give another example: Germany has a very detailed and deep IP protection law which even guarantees to every (co-)invetor that - while his invention belongs to his employer - his employer has to pay a certain fee to the (co-)inventor(s) in case of commercial success. (Legal requirement!) For this, the (co-)inventor needs to describe his contribution / idea - but not in hindsight, exactly then when (s)he has the idea!

So if people don't know this law or does not disclose and document his/her idea - how can anybody help them?

Quite often IP protection on the early stages can stop the project from the development and interest can be lost.

Dear Bernhard I did not use the terms of stolen idea, because I believe that ideas are meant to circulate freely, what I am talking about is in simple words unpaid work, on one side and undeserved merits, on the other. The latter named merits may led possibly but not always to a grant of IPR and thus future undeserved income.

I am not talking about Germany since I have no knowledge about German realities, though I know cases of non-Europeans PhD graduates who marched into Germany and found easier a place as a researcher there. It might be better in Germany I don't contest this fact. I believe that Germany is better in this field of non-discrimination legislation.

I am talking about reality in general, not about how the reality should be. In reality not all people have the same possibility to enforce their rights and therefore additional means are provided by law. However law is not static, it is always subject to amendment. This gives an indication of the fact that protection by law is always insufficient to a certain degree. What I try to find out in this discussion is exactly this. Is the protection of the weaker parties sufficiently safeguarded? I don't mean at all to take away the freedoms of a researcher, but to get more insight about realities as they are (not ideal realities, where there is a solution for everything).

To give another prosaic example, there are many cases of domestic abuse, women some of them educated who are subject to abuse during many years all over the globe and they are too ashamed to do something about it. This is the nature of the human being. The behaviour is irrational especially when the woman is educated and has her own income etc, but it is still happening. The public authorities have two possibilities:

1) To say that married women are adults, they must do something about it

2) Try to do reach these women and prevent this behaviour from happening by giving them alternative avenues of exit (not all people are happy to use the usual ways of enforcement, when it comes to work, family etc we are more prone to avoid the tough legal measures) This is what Sweden tries not always successfully to do for this matter.

The point 2 is connected to what Irene says that some people (again irrationally) try not to tackle the issue of IPR in the incipient stages. In some contract it might work as a strategy, where IPR are just an auxiliary matter.

It is interesting to find out how many people have experienced something similar (as Sam describes). If somebody contributes to a project even with just one month of work, it is good practice to mention his/her name. There is an immaterial value even in the fact that participation and merits are fully acknowledged. (even if no loyalties or something similar are due for that matter).

I must make an amendment to the term irrationality. Of course there might always be an explanation for somebody's apparently irrational act. What we normally mean by irrational is that a person does not act accordingly to his/her best economic or other relevant interest in question.

I agree with the statements given byErick Hall and Ion Gluga. The idea/ technology has limited ability to attract capital for its development and deployment unless patented. The capital wants a legal monopoly to reduce the risk.

Mrs. Matei, I used the term "stolen idea" only because some people here in this discussion used it (because that was their feeling), and also, because I am not a lawyer (like you seem to be), I am chemist, so I am using more like a popular term. But in this respect we seem to agree.

I do not want to enlarge the discussion about abuse beyong abuse or unfair use of scientific / technologcial ideas (I know about the limitations of self-defense very well). In science and technology, in contributions to IPR, I strictly promote the concept that everybody should protect himself, and the tools are available everywhere, not only in Germany (I took Germany only as an example for showing that legislation is there, quite advanced, but also there, it requires the individual contributor to be active! there will be no institution to save the idea creator from later abuse of his ideas with no credit for him / her, unless (s)he even does the simple first documentation step her/himself!)

(anyway I am mainly not working in Germany any more but in China)

May I be allowed to support my statement with the information, that I started my industrial research work in a company which had 3 people to begin with, I was No. 4, 4 years alter I changed to a 40 people small company, which means: I never had the financial resources to powerfully protect my ideas, but I protected very well, very efficiently! and I have beaten very big companies and have proven to them they had infringed patents, and soon after they paid and took licenses (I always granted licenses).

So I was always on the weak side of the power imbalance, a potential victim but I did not allow myself to behave as a victim, I used all available (as far as financially reasonable) tools to protect my IP.

http://www.bernhard-wessling.com

As an antitrust lawyer, I know that if we leave the research conducted by institutions (such as universities) and go into research conducted by corporations, the discussion will be much different. First in these conditions researchers are paid for specific research tasks, they have no possibility to claim any IPR.

Secondly it depends on the branch. IT and pharmaceuticals are known as opposites. In the IT if you have a clever idea and you know that it can be easily imitated, you just make sure that you are first on the market (not first at the patent office). The progress is very fast so time is money. Concerning pharmaceuticals a patent is a must, you must patent everything that can be patentable in order to protect your investment.

This is normal and reasonable. However corporations went beyond this normal level of protecting their investments by trying to use IPR in order to prevent competitors to enter the market. Patent clusters, continuations and divisionals, many other strategies to hinder the competition. It would be useful if Sam could reveal what he had in mind with his question.

Thank you, Mr Wessling! It is very good that you share your experience with your colleagues here on RG and I am happy that you've actually succeeded in protecting your research against the big companies and their army of top lawyers.

A lot and more have been said on some aspects of my questions. It would be good if we can also get some comments on other aspects of the question, such as :

(a) What are the impediments, challenges and risks to commercialization of IPs?

(b) How easy/difficult is it to attract R & D investment and venture capital for commercialization of IPs?

(c) What are the real determinants of successful technology transfer from IP to products?

Mrs. Matei, just a small comment only from the German law standpoint of view:

you wrote re companies " First in these conditions researchers are paid for specific research tasks, they have no possibility to claim any IPR."

This is probably correct for most of the world, only not in Grermany. There, a company has to pay a quite clearly and in detail defined fee to the (co-)inventor, there is lots of jurisdiction about it, and I think, it is a good law / jurisdiction. Again, it requires the indicudual to act first.

This is very interesting, indeed Mr Wessling! I know about other German laws such as the Mitbestimmungsgesetz according to which the employees enjoy more rights than usually guaranteed in other legal traditions. The protection of the employee is possibly best in the world in Germany (an example maybe for other similar economies/countries). We can not exclude of course that by way of private agreement a renowned/established researcher may obtain better conditions than the norm so to speak. (this is possible in any country)

Prof. Adeloju, your further questions are opening a whole new box of complicated issues, here I try to give some answer from my limited experience (I am not a researcher searching how innovation goes on, I made and realized and implemented a lot of innocations myself, but in muchmuch smaller scale compared to Apple Google Microsoft or Biotechnology, as I was and am working as small scale entrepreneur).

re (a) What are the impediments, challenges and risks to commercialization of IPs?

mainly, at the time of invention, you don't know enough about market, demand, market entrance barriers, even you don't know whether you can scale up your lab-proven idea (and more ...)

re (b) How easy/difficult is it to attract R & D investment and venture capital for commercialization of IPs?

the bigger the company, the more remote the decision makers are from real life, the more complicate it is to get approvals for R+D investment; although I am working all my life as a small company, I have lots of experience with bigger and real big ones as I cooperated with a lot of them: their decision makers want to get a kind of guarantee that the positive results will "100%" be sure to arrive after x years, but at the same time, they want to see that competitors can get to the same idea ... strange ...

similar for VC or public funding

re (c) What are the real determinants of successful technology transfer from IP to products?

my personal experience, maybe not widely applicable: the inventor(s) (the one(s) whose heart and blood is/are connected with the invention) should run the implementation themselves, then the risk to fail is minimized, and if the market demand was wrongly assessed before, then the invention / IP can be adapted more easily / quickly to what the real demand is as one can find out while implementing into the market.

In other words: I believe that many innovations do not succeed because for whatever reason, the scientists / inventors / researchers are disconnected from the implementation, partially because scientists tend to believe that implementation is too low, too dirty, customers are a pain and too dummy to talk to, partially because Marketing and Sales believe they know better about how to implement and look down on R+D., or else.

Dr. Bernard Wessling insists with the prominence of individual experience when addressing the issues raised by Professor Sam Adeloju’s question: ‘Do intellectual property norms protect research ideas?’ Bernard says IP protection laws in his own country are thorough and efficient and goes as far as giving us details of his successful saga against ‘world-class institutions’ (to borrow Sridhar Vadahanambi’s shrewd term):

“I never had the financial resources to powerfully protect my ideas”, he writes, “but protected them very well, very efficiently! And I have beaten very big companies and proven to them they had infringed patents, and soon after they paid and took licenses (I always granted licenses)”.

However, on my part, and believe on Sridhar’s and Dr. Emanuela Matei’s part as well, if one remains in the realm of subjectivity you will eventually realize that the situation is “very complicated”, as Bernard himself admitted right in the beginning of our discussion, and that it deserves some “serious thought about”.

Hence, my suggestion of placing both the Adeloju question and the subjective point of view in a context of ‘productive relations’. In such as frame – of unpaid work and undeserved merits – things are “especially worse”, as Sridhar Vadahanambi points out. It is a ‘no man’s land’, a political setting in which law is construed with little consideration for real life, and in which researchers are the weaker part in a relation of domination (Emanuela Matei).

Sam Adeloju is nonetheless right when he says that a good knowledge of individual experiences is still useful for addressing the issues at hand. Therefore, it would be worth, for comprehension sake, to give out details of at least one of my own unsuccessful sagas. One in which I had to fight a ‘world-class institution’ and found no preeminent lawyer willing to take my case by fear of being blacklisted. Who knows, perhaps if I were in Germany …

Pedro, just for your information: I have successfully defended my IP not only in Germany, but also in US, Japan, GB and Korea, and recently even in China. For IP protection (patent law), Germany has more or less the same law system as anywhere else in the world, anyway, it is European Law, not specific German law any more.

What I described more specifically about Germany is another law which requires to pay some success fee to the (co-)invetor8s) in case of a patent is commercialized, and I used this example only to support my statement that IP protection requires the individual's own activity.

For your case (and other similar ones), I would like to add: it also requires creativity, so if one or 2 lawyers are afraid or not interested, then the same creativity is necessary as you have for inventions.

In such a discussion, everybody will contribute his view based on his personal experience, this is what I do knowing very well that one can not easily generalize, but maybe it motivates some people to stop complaining abozut the unfair world and start trying to find creative and appropriate ways to protect their ideas / IP.

If only general comments are allowed in such a discussion, I stop commenting, and I am sure it will become boring (at least for me).

@Pedro...

Sorry to hear that you too a victim of "world-class university"...

Not university, Sridhar, but publishers. I was referring to a seven-edition textbook of mine. As for 'creativity', oh yes sir sure, intellectual producers must be very creative in a 'no man's land' where not a single IP legal expert will take your case, even when you have all the evidence against a 'world-class' opponent. On the other hand, if you already have a court decision in your favour you can easily win in other places - "even in China". But this has nothing to do with being individually 'more creative' or 'less complaining'. Protection of intellectual property is a political matter, a matter of power, which is why Professor Adeloju raised the question: "Is the Protection of Research Ideas by Intellectual Property Really Worthwhile?" Always, even though IP vultures would try to persuade us it's not.

Now I realize that I was close to be trapped as well by an editor like that. They contacted me via LinkedIn and since I was quite inflexible and asked lots of questions they told me that my subject does not fit in their collection, even if in the beginning they told me that they were very interested in that subject.

One year ago another editor wanted to publish a very old paper of mine, a student paper, but already published by Wolters Kluwer... when they found out that they stopped writing e-mails to me... so even if I am not very experienced in this business I can see that many 'vultures' have their habitat in this ecosystem :)

This is why open source must be used carefully, I believe, because not all universities have smart policies against plagiarism, a data base check, an internet check etc to discover the lazy students (and not only students). Moreover many want just to look bigger than they actually are and need to add names and biographies just to impress the next victim or the general public. Recently a professor in EU constitutional law from Netherlands found out that he had participated in a conference that he didn't know about. The information about his work a s o was copy-pasted from internet.

I believe that they look for people who don't reside in the country just to make an eventual trial even more difficult. Therefore they have such low prices. So at least in my domain a book sold under € 20 euros is already a suspect. Most books cost starting from € 70 to € 300, so if you see a book with the title International Contracts, for instance and it costs €20 either is a bluff or is an illegal copy.

Protection is always better. We can publish our work after protection.

Getting patented allows researcher to have time to deal with the new invention and idea for application. Once it was expired, then others can use. This is a fair play.

Patenting of an invention is a must.But infringement of patent rights particularly by a powerful opponent leading to commercialisation is a serious problem to face.

I have a question?

How to come to a compromise with the opponent to have immediate benefit as legality is along drawn process?

Coal pretreament by microwave is concerned, I am facing such a problem in a way. I have done quite a good amount of work longback ( andpatented some aspect of it ), covering the benefits of microwave treatment and awaiting funds frominterested parties for pilot trial and commercialisation.

In the meantime, another business enterprise has gone ahead through pilot trial and

approaching arious countries for fullscale commercialisation though the scale up difficulties still exist. If my work is combined with them, it will reflect greatly on the benefits and result in impact giving benefits.

My work is very much applicable to the coal available in my country. Now, this business enterprise is trying to get their work Patented in my country and enter commercialisation. In this case, what should be done? It is difficult to oppose such an approach unless some industrialist takes it up settle the issue. I am ready to give patent rights etc by mutual agreement, if any financier/ industrialist takes up this challenge.This work is very relevant with respect to green enregy production from bad quality coals of drift origin .

I would very much appreciate receiving response form Coal based energy produers and researchers facing such problems.

The fact that most patents have no or almost no commercial value has been documented in patent evaluation studies. Patent value distribution is exponential, with a very small number of high-value patents and a very, very large number of patents with negligible commercial value (the long tail).

Whether scientists should use IP to protect their research is a question that should not just be discussed in terms of potential commercial value. Science depends on the open exchange of research results. Patenting research results creates an exclusive right and thus removes the patented research results from free circulation among fellow scientists. Furthermore science is often publicly funded. Why should individual scientists or universities be allowed to exclude the public via IP from the results of the research it has payed for?

no question that most of the patents have no value because there is no business behind; that is normal for 2 reasons

a) one can not know at the time of invention whether or not the product / process can really be commerialized, and even if, commercial success is dependant on so many parameters, many of the not controllable, including luck (! yes!) that one can not predict a success

b) many companies do not have a really good patenting strategy.

In my case, I have to say: my patent portfolio in total (not everyone!) has had great commercial value, by protecting my technology, by selling licenses etc ... (and the core of my patent portfolio is in practical use.

One aspect you wrote, Mr. Haunss, need to be commented: it is not the individual scientist in a university who owns the IP, but it is the university, hence it is the same entity for which (in case it is publicly funded by tax payer's money) the tax payers paid, and which will get some return on investment based on IP (if well done), and that again is some money owned by the public.

So this aspect does not count against protecting IP generated in a university.

In Poland discussion on granting property rights to scientists started. The Ministry of Higher Education prepared proposals for changes in the Act on the Higher Education. The ministry and the National Centre for Research and Development are convinced that it will increase a degree of the commercialization of findings. But scientists we aren't convinced whether the model put forward is competent. Among others it isn't known who is supposed to incur costs of IP getting. The ministry as positive examples is giving the system being applicable in many EU countries. However the majority of scientists isn't convinced for proposed granting property rights to scientists. Are anxieties right?

Protection of research ideas should be done for the purpose of protection it from any potential misuse. When public money is used for further exploration of the idea and its eventual commercialization, the benefit of IPR right should go to public, it should not belong to a person or an organization. But of course, due recognition must be accorded to the scientist(s) involved.

There should be a time limit for protection through IP. This would then allow the proponents to publish or commercialise their products. However, if they do not take advantage of this then after the time limit the data, information, etc. should be made publically available.

Such "time limits" are basically part of the philosophy of the patent law in most or all countries:

a) after one has filed the patent application, one can publish scientific publications without affecting the IP rights

b) within 1 year, one can decide to continue trying to get a patent or not

c) during the following years, the cost for maintaining the patents are increasing, this forces the patent owner to review each year whether or not the patent should be kept alive; if no commercialisation happened (let's say: after 5 years), one will very critically evaluate whether it makes sense to keep paying the yearly and icreasing patent fee

d) anyway, 20 years after filing the first application, (priority date), the patent will become invalid and is open for public use.

It is true that a large majority (90-95% or more) of the IPs do not get commercialized and end up gathering dust or filed away. To prevent this, we should make sure that whatever novel idea that we have has a technological value. For that, we should have a thorough knowledge of the developments going on in the relevant fields, the requirement of our research in the market or the future potential of the invention. Always remember that IP should mean business. In my opinion, If is it going to sell, protect it! If it MAY sell and you have the finance to protect it, then also, go for a protection. Otherwise, go for a publication. Please also remember that in history, big mistakes have been made by not protecting IP. So, it is advisable to decide carefully and wisely.

I find the discussion very interesting . I wonder how much of the patents are of use for the community at large? Who are the real beneficiaries? Benefit of the research may be a one-time event?

Very interesting indeed but has Creative Commons any role in building a sharing environment in science for the good of all?

who owns a research idea? how do you demonstrate its yours and NB else's? why you want to protect an idea? what guarantees that the idea is correct?

Very true Osoriyo....

Fabrice and Osorio, what a patent (as an IP) protects has been dealt with about 10-11 days ago. For your benefits and of those just joining this discussion, I will give you an abbreviated version of the view expressed on this. A research idea of itself cannot be patented unless it is backed up by results. BUT there must FIRST be an invention (research) idea from someone or a group of people. The inventive process is where the idea is tested, proven, refined etc. So there are two key distinct aspects to invention: (a) origination/ generation of invention idea and (b) experimentation/testing of ideas.

It just come into my mind in the advent of open-access publications what is the real benefit of IP in the real sense of the meaning of intellecuual property or are we talking about eventually of public property at large? just a thought!

Kadal, the US patent office issues a lot of strange patents, and refused other (good ones) for strange reasons. Finally, if your idea would lead to a real product, and somebody would infringe your patent (or somebody who really makes a product based on your idea, files a real patent with all details, and you may want to attack that patent), it would be very easy to prove that your "idea" was not well disclosed, and you would finally lose the case.

- which means: having a patent is not a safe, not a strong protection of IP by itself

- patents are only strong if they contain many clear (distinguishable, analyzable) elements (aspects) which later can be found exactly that way in the product.

Yes its is worth and patent the intellectual ideas to avoid plagsiarism

The ideas of today are the inventions of tomorrow. It is important and necessary to protect your ideas.

The simple way:

(1) Summarize and write your idea.

(2) Make two copies and send these by registered post to your address.

(3) One closed envelope is for your documentation.

The second closed envelope will be deposited in an office of public authorities.

(4) Now you have time to develop your idea and time to obtain additional information.

You have the evidence and you can prove the truth of its at any time and for everyone.

I received this tip from the Swiss Federal Institute of Intellectual Property .

DO NOT FORGET: YOUR IDEA belongs TO YOU!!!

with best wishes

Eva