But public funded research isn’t “free to use.” In many cases, you can’t even read it without paying a scientific journal for a subscription. See the Bayh-Dole Act as well: universities can patent discoveries from federally funded research.
But public funded research isn’t “free to use.” In many cases, you can’t even read it without paying a scientific journal for a subscription. See the Bayh-Dole Act as well: universities can patent discoveries from federally funded research.
These aren't contradictory ideas. Governments should fund more research and should also make it free.
Publications with public funding have already escaped the paywall, partially as of 2013 and completely as of this year:
https://par.nsf.gov/
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/
https://ospo.gwu.edu/overview-us-policy-open-access-and-open...
https://www.nih.gov/about-nih/who-we-are/nih-director/statem...
https://www.coalition-s.org/plan_s_principles/
The intent of the Bayh-Dole Act was to deal with a perceived problem of government-owned patents being investor-unfriendly. At the time the government would only grant non-exclusive licenses, and investors generally want exclusivity. That may have been the actual problem, moreso than who owned the patent. On the other hand, giving the actual inventors an incentive to commercialize their work should increase their productivity and the chance that the inventions actually get used.
There’s no reason that couldn’t be changed, e.g. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43858568.