CSIRO Reinvests Patent Earnings 86
ozmanjusri writes with an update to a story we discussed a few days ago about a $200 million patent victory by CSIRO, Australia's governmental science research body. The organization has now turned around and reinvested $150 million of the proceeds into the science and industry endowment fund, which has already established three grants: "$12 million for two wireless research projects and $7.5 million for up to 120 fellowships and scholarships." CSIRO boss Megan Clark said, "It's very important that when you have a success like this, you reinvest it back into the wellspring. It's really about supporting areas that might need a helping hand in some of the frontier areas and research that actually tackles the national challenges."
Re:and here in USA... (Score:5, Interesting)
So the only place for the profits to go is to bonuses or shareholder profits.
How about corporate charitable giving?
Or using the money to extend the business?
The problem is that the choice before the executives is between doing something good for the business or possible for humanity and lining their own pockets.
Re:and here in USA... (Score:3, Interesting)
I would think that long term investments in government and infrastructure would do a lot of good for the bank, the nation, and for the people. It might not be as good as charitable donations, but anything that strengthens the country has to be good for the bank in the long run.
Of course, buying government bonds don't pay excitingly high dividends, so it isn't attractive to the thrill seeking executives to whom banking is a game.
Re:too bad the proceeds came from stifling progres (Score:3, Interesting)
Yes, the Rault paper (which includes all the techniques in the patent, just not one particular application) was published in 1989, years before the CSIRO patent was filed (it doesn't matter how many years, as long as it's greater than one year). COFDM itself was invented in the 1960s.
You've put it too simply. The Rault paper was rejected as prior art because it didn't mention that the same techniques would work indoors. That's an indication that the system is broken, not a testament to the validity of the patent.
Re:too bad the proceeds came from stifling progres (Score:3, Interesting)
You seem to imply CSIRO didn't work for their money, despite inventing, and testing, the technology that a very, very large number of people use daily. That qualifies as then not being a troll, and it qualifies the companies as trying to weasel out of something so small, the payment for the use of their patented technology, it's absurd.
Also, do you think that any company would put that much of the 200 million dollars into research on this one technology? Any company would take that money and run, and usually only come up with an incremental upgrade to what we have now, if anything at all.
Re:Research, patent, troll; repeat as desired (Score:3, Interesting)
This is exactly the way the patent system is supposed to work. It's supposed to encourage innovation and protect investment. What CSIRO is doing is improving the world. Can you imagine the world today if they hadn't done the research and developed the WIFI technology that everyone takes for granted?
Yeah, I can imagine it --- somebody else would have done the research and the world would be basically just the same. If this is an example of how patents are a good thing, I'm not convinced.
There would have been just as much pressure / motivation for wifi without patents: the first laptop to have wifi would have been an enormous hit, and all the competitors would have had to follow.
(FWIW, I'm an Australian scientist and taxpayer. I have plenty of respect for the CSIRO, and I'm happy to see them land 200 million. But I'd much rather fund them through taxes than have a massive patent system.)