What I understand is that they now believe filing a non-limiting or free license patent is preferable, as otherwise anyone can make a small tweak in the published method and patent it for profit.
The thing is I would love to patent and give it license-free, but I'm afraid I don't have the power to make that decision, as the tech transfer office will do the filing and the ownership will be mostly the university's.
That would be the best option, but I'm afraid the tech transfer office at the university, who will be the ones doing the filing, has no incentive to release a patent. Their whole goal is profit.
That is exactly my worry with just publishing it. As I understand it, anyone can make a small tweak and patent the whole thing in a way that limits the technology from being used widely.
I actually work part-time for GFI. I have spoken to several of the Scitech folks, and surprisingly there is no set strategy for these cases. There seems to be a gradual change over time from strongly supporting open-source science to more nuanced 'maybe patent but in a non-limiting way'.
What I understand is that they now believe filing a non-limiting or free license patent is preferable, as otherwise anyone can make a small tweak in the published method and patent it for profit.
The thing is I would love to patent and give it license-free, but I'm afraid I don't have the power to make that decision, as the tech transfer office will do the filing and the ownership will be mostly the university's.
That would be the best option, but I'm afraid the tech transfer office at the university, who will be the ones doing the filing, has no incentive to release a patent. Their whole goal is profit.
That is exactly my worry with just publishing it. As I understand it, anyone can make a small tweak and patent the whole thing in a way that limits the technology from being used widely.
Hey Sahkeel,
I actually work part-time for GFI. I have spoken to several of the Scitech folks, and surprisingly there is no set strategy for these cases. There seems to be a gradual change over time from strongly supporting open-source science to more nuanced 'maybe patent but in a non-limiting way'.