There still *is* proprietary scientific knowledge [LWN.net]

From:		Duncan Simpson <duncan-AT-commercialuk.com>
To:		letters-AT-lwn.net
Subject:		There still is proprietary sciencific knowledge
Date:		04 Dec 2003 11:59:11 +0000

Proprietary scientific knowhow still exists. It is protected by patents
and the examples have included transistors, IC manufacturing techniques,
MRI scanners and optical amplification of signals in optical fibers.
Indeed this knowhow is arguably *more* proprietary than software: even
if you independently develop the same technique, using it still requires
a license.

The fact that most research is not proprietary is primary because the
people involved want it to be free. Publishing something, to establish
priority, is regarded as good thing---and this makes it no longer
patentable almost everywhere except the US. IBM et al publish things
that they think are not worth patenting, so nobody else can patent them.

Mathematics, including process calculi[*] and graph theory, can not be
patented and copyright suits for copying techniques are unlikely to
succeed. Mathematics was free in medieval times too...

[*] Process calculi are theoretical computer science. Almost everybody
without a CS degree has never seen one, and even fewer people have used
process calculus in anger. Process calculus is used in anger in my PhD
thesis and there are definitely other examples.

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There still *is* proprietary scientific knowledge

Posted Dec 11, 2003 4:54 UTC (Thu) by dlang (subscriber, #313) [Link]

I think you are mixing up your IP protection methods.

Patents REQUIRE you to disclose the details in the patent, and anyone can read them, they just aren't allowed to use them without a license

you don't get a patent and secrecy both, you have to pick one or the other.

and patents do expire. 17 years seems like forever in the computer industry, but that time does eventually roll around (look at the explosion of SSL enabled things once the RSA patent expired)

There still *is* proprietary scientific knowledge

Posted Dec 11, 2003 5:47 UTC (Thu) by freethinker (guest, #4397) [Link]

Isn't it 20 years now?

Patents require disclosure

Posted Dec 13, 2003 20:28 UTC (Sat) by giraffedata (subscriber, #1954) [Link]

I'd like to fortify this point, by saying a patent doesn't just REQUIRE disclosure; it IS disclosure.

"Patent" is from the Latin meaning "laying open." Patents are designed to give an inventor a way to tell the world what he invented without losing money due to competition. The opposite of having patent isn't everyone being able to use the technology; it's the inventor keeping the technology a secret.

I'll grant that patents are frequently used in ways inconsistent with the goal of getting inventors to disclose their inventions, but that's still the fundamental concept.

"anger"?

Posted Dec 12, 2003 20:39 UTC (Fri) by wcooley (subscriber, #1233) [Link]

What does the author mean by "anger"? Seems a really odd use of the word, or maybe I'm missing a bit a dry sarcasm. Or maybe it's a legal meaning with which I am unfamiliar.

"anger"?

Posted Dec 15, 2003 3:30 UTC (Mon) by kingdon (subscriber, #4526) [Link]

I guess "dry sarcasm" is the way to describe it, but it is hardly a new usage. For example, "have you ever run kill -KILL in anger?". Which would mean something like doing it to really kill a process, not just to see how it worked or something. Example from the net: ant in anger. I imagine it derives from law (as in "using a gun in anger" or something), although I'm not sure. A web search found: resigning from a job in anger and the effect of provocation on culpability for homicide in English law.