Gord wrote: > >What's the translation for R&D to profit? I mean to ask, do companies tend >to lay, say, ten R&D projects out hoping that one will deliver a feasibly >product, and then produce say ten trial products hoping that one will be a >major winner and then make it all back off that one? How conservative is >the process, generally? In the oil patch, it is very conservative. We don't have research any more. In fact, corporate research, as a percentage of total corporate spending, has gone down, IIRC. Development hasn't, but you have to remember that most companies include stuff like maintenance engineering in their official R&D budget to sound more cutting edge. Fundamental research by corporations is way way down. When Ma Bell was a monopoly, she could afford basic research. Now she cannot. > >My readings in one early period of patents and patenting is that, rather >than there being a really solid kind of directed R&D going on, there was >more of a widespread kind of sloppy haphazard research, but it actually >produced dozens upon dozens of products. Back then, one could write a scientific paper on how snow under a black cloth melts faster than one under a white cloth. Even into the late 1800s, garage inventors could come up with fairly worthwhile stuff. The money poured into research is much higher now than it was before WWII, but I think that it is lower than it was in the '50s and '60s as a percentage of corporate spending. > >But I've been thinking is almost the opposite . . . about how the drive to >profit might impact on the pace and nature of development � >on that kind of popularity that Dyson notes. ie.: "If it's a product >everyone wants, then we'd better keep it secret till we finish it so nobody >rips off our idea." That's only true if the idea is not patentable. If it is patentable, then that is a very dangerous strategy. Lets say company A has discovered a new process that could be very profitable and secretly works on it until it is ready for market. They file for the patent the day before they start commercial tests. This process takes 5 years, lets say. In contrast, company B independently discovers the same idea 4.5 years later. They get together, decide it�s profitable and rush a patent application. It is submitted two days before the other company planned commercial tests. In this example, company B, not company A will have the rights to the idea. Filing dates, not invented dates, are critical. When I served on the technology review committee (the technical patent committee) for 8 years at Baker Hughes, early filing of broad ideas was emphasized over and over. >Why, after all, would a company want to patent a specific gene or >series, except to prevent others from researching in that area? That's not the point. It will usually be to obtain rights in that area. I don't know about the drug industry, but licensing agreements are very common in the oil patch. 5% of revenue is the typical price of a license. The inventor of lasers didn�t dominate the laser business; they sold licenses. >Now, certainly that makes good business sense -- you want to protect your >investment in research. The problem is, it seems to me, that it could >easily make for a bad situation for science because it's secretive and >avoids collaboration and cooperation of experts and inventive minds outside >of the immediate project circle. Well, we don't share more information than we need to across companies. But, patents require that you put in enough information so that a "person ordinarily skilled in the arts" can develop the tool or process from the patent. > >How far off is my assessment of the situation? Personally, I think a good bit. The patent situation is no more secretive than it was 50 years ago. >When before now did profits play such a huge role in inhibiting >transparent collaboration and competition throughout a field of study? At least post WWII. If anything, the present patent laws punish secrecy more than the patent laws that existed up to a few years ago. Dan'm Traeki Ring of Crystallized Knowledge. Known for calculating, but not known for shutting up Re _________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com. Share information about yourself, create your own public profile at http://profiles.msn.com.
