Dear RG community,
I recently participated in interesting intellectual property versus peer review paper debate. My view, both topics are intriguing (produce good for society) but I question how much content is missing from sustainable smart city and advance technology bodies of knowledge because patents are more important to certain society segments. One advantage of a paper is the rigorous peer review process. In contrast, a patent overview document can be generic and may not provide many details for deeper research. I’m interested in the community perspective.
Anything with tangible societal impact - often practice or policy-based!
John Wilkerson ,
Both create values through different mechanisms, but the content-missing problem is not due to either patents in themselves or scientific publishing. In the case of patents there is an incentive to disclose in return for the right to exclude from selling the claimed aspects of the technology. In the academic side there is the recognition and funding incentive to publish. Both sides offer incentives,to disclose.
That being said, the right to exclude may put some constraints on a market such as lack of competitors during time of exclusion, but in my view is a completely different problem and it is not a contributor to the missing-content issue. The patent quality is another issue that is different, but then it does not fall on patents to have that level of precision. It falls on scientific disclosure through publications to give the precision(that is why patents can cite scientific literature to provide its accuracy support).
On the academic side, the problem lies on the lack of incentives from corporations to attract academia. To work for corporations does not count for academic rank or promotion, it does not provide recognition for publishing and it more than likely contributes to a trade secret agreement. I think the main argument towards missing-information problem lies here and not in patents.
My opinion, in a way, I have already given it in other answers, but I want to reiterate a position. Both publications and patents are part of the research process - science - technology - innovation. At all stages of the process, the ethics of each of its participants must prevail. An arbitration process of an article cannot become the starting point for a fraud, a very condemnable act by the scientific community. I have seen with concern how the alert has grown among scientists about the possibility of these frauds, we must comply with the provisions. For me, science responds to institutions, to governments where there are research priorities that have to be protected by institutions, such crimes should not occur. Obviously, a lot of information is offered in the peer arbitration process, but following the established steps there is no problem with doing so. Patents, such as articles where research results are usually presented, are procedures to protect inventions that reveal a novelty and have an industrial application. They also carry very complex procedures, but unlike the articles, patents are protected in government trademark and patent offices and this process is carried out precisely to prevent the work of a scientist or a group of scientists from being stolen. Patents close a research cycle, plagiarizing an outcome from an office is very difficult, and if this happens it is much easier to start a legal process to guarantee the rights of the patent owner. Both patents and peer arbitration processes are valuable processes in the development of science, technology and innovation. What we must guarantee is a community work based on moral values where science is a common good of each scientific community, of the nation and of humanity, without losing individual rights.
Ali Cheshmehzangi Thank you for your feedback! Bottom-line, society is the winner!
Arturo Geigel I strongly agree with your point, the lack of incentives from corporations to attract academia. The world of research and social value is complex topic and I certainly do not have the right answer. Thank you for your feedback.
A publication of a research work may or may not guarantee an industrial application. But a patent is granted only for an invention that is novel, non obvious and has some industrial application. A patent needs to be industrially applicable. So both are equally important but obvious patents are more valued.
Both are important, impact knowledge development, and help in useful applied information exchange.
Chuck A Arize and Hassan Izzeddin Sarsak Thank you for your feedback. Just a personal observation, during the last few years I have discovered that many patents (well researched) can have an immediate impact. Peer review papers are effective but take time.
The impact of the document that is disseminated via publication in a peer-reviewed scientific journal is published in two populations:
John Wilkerson ,
"I have discovered that many patents (well researched) can have an immediate impact"
I am very interested in this sort of instances and would greatly appreciate if you could consider sharing it.
Regards
Satish Narula
, well said.. few patents have meaningful historical value. Thank you!
José Luis García Vigil Excellent perspective. The peer review article has more prestige and a patent fills a short term niche.
Both achieve what is required, as long as it is in the service of humanity.
Arturo Geigel My case is not very interesting but here is my experience. In 2018 my team and I wrote a complex research paper focused on reduce fashion air pollution at the manufacturing source. Most of the paper's was straightforward but the artificial intelligence topic required non linear thinking. My team's paper passed the first review but one final reviewer comment stuck with me "artificial intelligence will not work in the fashion industry".
I personally accepted the challenge and then wrote a patent to prove that AI applies to fashion. It could take years before anyone reads the final proposal because local legal advisors suggest providing generic summaries to the public. In this case society could lose out.
Regarding my paper, a colleague suggested that I should focus on evidence based publications not conceptual publications in the future.
Isam Issa Omran Liqaa Habeb Al-Obaydi , We are in alignment! Thank you for your feedback!
John Wilkerson ,
It is interesting since almost all the anecdotal experiences I have heard are the other way around. It is the writing of a paper to carry out the experimentation required to prove that the invention works.
Thanks for sharing
- Badges
- Science topic