[time-nuts] [OT] Paywall Rant (was Re: Spoofing GPS)

[Jim Lux]

On 6/28/12 5:22 AM, J. Forster wrote:
> FYI, MIT got anal about IP policy in the early 1970s, demanding a transfer
> of all IP rights to the Institute for everything everyone did.
>
> I quit and went into the Consulting business (and wound up getting paid a
> LOT more for the same work).
>
> There is a fundamental conflict between the IP rights of sponsors and the
> open flow of information...  even more so if you include international IP
> theft.
>
> Essentially today, if you work for somebody, they own you.

I think one of the big changes in the US was the Bayh-Dole act, at least 
with respect to government funded research at universities.  Prior to 
that most university grants were structured so that "if the taxpayer 
paid for it, it's available to anyone" (barring the whole journal 
pubs/page charge issue.. but you see a lot of "Government Work not 
protected by copyright" on older IEEE papers, for instance.  I think 
those are mostly work at Govt labs, though)


After Bayh-Dole in 1980, which was intended to stimulate the nascent 
genetic and bioengineering fields, universities (like Caltech, for which 
I work, since they run JPL) can retain the rights to anything produced 
at the institution.  The Government gets a fully paid, non-exclusive, 
royalty free "government purpose rights" license, but the institution 
owns it and can sell it for whatever the market will bear.

This substantially changed the whole IP landscape.  I think, before, 
universities by and large actually didn't pay much attention to it. 
Sure, there were professors spinning off a private operation, but the 
uni didn't get a slice of the pie, since the uni developed piece (which 
inevitably had public funds) was free to all.


One commentator said "The Bayh-Dole Act, which was enacted on December 
12, 1980, was revolutionary in its outside-the-box thinking, creating an 
entirely new way to conceptualize the innovation to marketplace cycle. 
It has lead to the creation of 7,000 new businesses based on the 
research conducted at U.S. Universities. Prior to the enactment of 
Bayh-Dole there was virtually no federally funded University technology 
licensed to the private sector, no new businesses and virtually no 
revolutionary University innovations making it to the public"


I wouldn't agree with the last statement... what's more accurate, I 
think is that nobody was able to make substantial money with a 
university innovation by itself.  Lots of revolutionary innovations made 
it into industry and to the public, unsung, unheralded, etc.   How many 
people use a variant of BSD Unix? Spice? etc.  There are tons of niche 
businesses (some in the time and frequency business, no less) that 
basically have a few products based on some research done at a 
University, and they have "commercialized" it in a useful and 
unexceptional way.

When people started to see the potential for *billions* in revenue, and 
some actually made millions, the Uni-s started to get interested.  (one 
of Caltech and JPL's poster children for this is the database product 
known as Vulcan at the lab, which became dBase which turned into 
Ashton-Tate)

Now we are VERY sensitive to IP rights.  (look at the big case about 
Stanford v. Roche and their patent agreement.. small changes in wording 
about "agree to assign" vs "assign" rights, and all)