• Carighan Maconar@lemmy.world
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    7 months ago

    That’s in fact why some universities patent their research stuff in the first place, to ensure nobody else can. They’ll then make it a policy to take 0€ in licensing fees, but this precludes anybody else from starting to lock the tech behind money.

    Source: My uni back in the days had a few dozen patents for exactly this reason, too.

    • Miaou@jlai.lu
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      7 months ago

      IANAL but patents rely on originality, meaning a preprint of the original paper is basically enough to make the technology impossible to patent. Well probably more than just the paper I guess.

      • oyo@lemm.ee
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        7 months ago

        Not anymore. The US switched from a “first-to-invent” system to a “first-to-file.” Prior art doesn’t matter for shit.

      • Nithanim@programming.dev
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        7 months ago

        I learned it too that it has to be “new”. Most likely it is a hell of a lot easier to directly patent it and have a strong legal foundation than just wait around and scramble for proof if it needs to be. Probably also helps being picked up by the industry.

    • stoly@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      Yep. At max a university will take back its investment amount so that they can operationalize this sort of activity.