I teach at Lehigh University in eastern Pennsylvania. I work on British colonialism, modernism, postcolonial/global literature, and the digital humanities.
Tuesday, December 14, 2004
What Have You Invented For Me Lately?
Erich Kunhardt, a Physics professor writing in the Times, says academics should be required to invent things, in addition to doing research and teaching.
That's patently silly (forgive the pun). First of all, I fail to see the huge distinction between "research" and "invent". There are clearly inventions that are not research, and vice versa, but overall one of the goals of good research *is* to innovate.
Secondly, the US patent office procedures are a mess. Pretty much anything can get patented, and thus the value of a patent is highly questionable. If someone's six year old child can get a patent for a swing, then the system is definitely broken (this was an NYT article some time ago).
I work in a Bell-Labs style research lab in a company and filing patents is encouraged in my line of work. However I can't see what benefit a professor can get from filing patents, even if there are incentives to do so. It takes time away from research for one, and makes a researcher focus on separating himself/herself from others artificially, rather than trying to unify and distill knowledge.
2 comments:
That's patently silly (forgive the pun). First of all, I fail to see the huge distinction between "research" and "invent". There are clearly inventions that are not research, and vice versa, but overall one of the goals of good research *is* to innovate.
Secondly, the US patent office procedures are a mess. Pretty much anything can get patented, and thus the value of a patent is highly questionable. If someone's six year old child can get a patent for a swing, then the system is definitely broken (this was an NYT article some time ago).
I work in a Bell-Labs style research lab in a company and filing patents is encouraged in my line of work. However I can't see what benefit a professor can get from filing patents, even if there are incentives to do so. It takes time away from research for one, and makes a researcher focus on separating himself/herself from others artificially, rather than trying to unify and distill knowledge.
sorry for the double post. More thoughts here
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