[A]s academic scientists increasingly accept industry funding and engage in commercial activities such as patenting, the concern is that biomedical research will suffer as rights holders refuse to share their materials and information. Patents, however, may not be the issue, according to two recent surveys and a new report by the National Academy of Sciences. "The problem is not patents per se," says John P. Walsh, associate professor of sociology at the University of Illinois-Chicago. "It's a combination of scientific competition, wanting to publish first, and commercial interests more broadly." Additionally, he points out, many academic scientists tend to largely ignore patents anyway. In a survey of biomedical researchers conducted in late 2004, Walsh and colleagues found that only 5% of academic bench scientists regularly check for patents on work related to their research. More often, difficulties arise when scientists ask for tangible research inputs, such as materials and data, and are rebuffed. In the survey, 19% of biomedical researchers reported their most recent request for material was denied. This is resulting in a greater number of people having to abandon projects, says Walsh...."Academia seems less affected by patenting than industry when it comes to gaining access to knowledge, perhaps because it continues to maintain the more traditional and informal channels of how it has historically shared intellectual property," says Stephen A. Hansen, project manager of the AAAS Science and Intellectual Property in the Public Interest (SIPPI) program.
Posted by
Peter Suber at 1/20/2006 10:49:00 AM.
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
I recommend the OA tracking project (OATP) as the best way to stay on top of new OA developments. You can read the OATP feed on a blog-like web page or subscribe to it by RSS, email, or Twitter. You can also help build the feed by tagging new developments you encounter.
