Showing posts with label "science patents". Show all posts
Showing posts with label "science patents". Show all posts

Tuesday, February 26, 2019

A Century-Old Debate Over Science Patents Is Repeating Itself Today; Slate, February 25, 2019

Charles Duan, Slate; A Century-Old Debate Over Science Patents Is Repeating Itself Today

"What caused the demise of Ruffini’s idea? It turned out to be devils in the details: Deep thinkers on the subject, even those in favor of scientific property in principle, couldn’t figure out the implementation. Rogers, for example, wondered how scientific property would deal with multiple contributors to one discovery. Who, for example, “discovered” electricity—Benjamin Franklin? André-Marie Ampère? George Simon Ohm? The “chap that made the Leyden jar”? Industries worried about unexpected liability and demanded creation of a scientific property insurance scheme. The American Association for the Advancement of Science report found concerns that the expansive scope of some scientific discoveries could lead to unbounded, tortuous litigation. A U.S. Patent Office official wondered how scientific property patents could be written without being too vague and speculative."