Do patents foster innovation, or do they hold it back?
Posted by Bea on Mon 2 Oct 2006Categories: Discussion Forum , Patents | [2] Comments
Where do you stand on the debate?
Patents are a menace, according to Terence Kealey, clinical biochemist and vice-chancellor at the University of Buckingham, UK.
‘Inventors claim they need patents to incentivise their research but, today, it is the company that fails to innovate that goes bust,’ says Kealey.
But patents protect inventions by giving the owner of the patent the right to stop anyone from making or using the invention without the owner’s permission, says Barry Treves, president of the Chartered Institute of Patent Attorneys, UK.
‘In today’s liberal and free market economies it’s not just industrialists and governments who recognise the importance of a sound and enforceable patent system; increasingly the academic world is coming to realise that patents and the licence revenues that can flow from them are making an essential contribution to university research and to economic growth,’ says Treves.
Wed 18 Oct 2006 at 10:45 am
It´s naive to claim patents in the western world having other nations in mind like china where patents and copyrights of the western world rather don´t count. This way those scientists have much more possibilities and tools they can use for new inventions.
Despite the fact that using existing patents without admission is illegal, the free flow of information is given. That is the base for a fast devoloping world.
By the way…
I´m member of the german chemistry community http://www.chemikerboard.de moderating and administrating it on a non-profit base. There we provide other pupils & students with help in their chemical issues in their classes.
Is it possible to list it under “Links” in this nice Chemistry Word blog?
URL: http://www.chemikerboard.de
(here is the board itself: http://www.chemikerboard.de/index.php )
I wish you all a nice week!
Best Regards,
Jama Nateqi
Fri 20 Oct 2006 at 9:31 am
Used with purpose the patent system has advantages for small companies. For 35 years I was an R&D chemist working with making small electronic components. Despite numerous electro/mechanical patents I only realised one, a mixture of two compounds to upgrade voltage limits on ceramic capacitors. My work with potentiometers was important enough to receive offers from abroad but these were rejected and there were no patent applications. If the work or product is easy to analyse, easy to understand, easy to copy and easy to define then a patent may be called for. Where it is none of these a small company with limited resources does better to keep quiet. In this way we have kept ahead of the competition for the last 20 years.