How the patent system corrupts academic inquiry

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Thoughtful piece in the NYT about the long-term impact of the Bayh-Dole Act of 1980 which aimed to use the patent system to promote “the utilization of inventions arising from federally supported research or development” and “to promote collaboration between commercial concerns and nonprofit organizations, including universities.”

In the past, discovery for its own sake provided academic motivation, but today’s universities function more like corporate research laboratories. Rather than freely sharing techniques and results, researchers increasingly keep new findings under wraps to maintain a competitive edge. What used to be peer-reviewed is now proprietary. “Share and share alike” has devolved into “every laboratory for itself.”

In trying to power the innovation economy, we have turned America’s universities into cutthroat business competitors, zealously guarding the very innovations we so desperately want behind a hopelessly tangled web of patents and royalty licenses.

Of course, there is precedent for scientific secrecy, notes Daniel S. Greenberg , author of “Science for Sale: The Perils, Rewards and Delusions of Campus Capitalism” (University of Chicago Press, 2007). When James Watson and Francis Crick were homing in on DNA’s double-helix structure in the 1950s, they zealously guarded their work from prying eyes until they could publish their findings, to be certain that they would get the credit for making the discovery.

“They didn’t try to patent it,” Mr. Greenberg notes, “but somebody doing the same work today would certainly take a crack at patenting the double helix.”

On this day…

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… in 1940, the Blitz began as the Luftwaffe began its nightly assaults on London. September 7 was a Sunday that year too. Er, no it wasn’t; it was a Saturday. Thanks to Harry Metcalfe for putting me right.

Ten years on

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This morning’s Observer column…

In the old days, dates fell into one of two categories: BC and AD. Now the relevant categories are BG. and AG: Before and After Google. The critical date was 1998, when Larry Page and Sergey Brin launched their PageRank system for rating web pages. It was an epochal moment. No British child knows there was once a world without Google. In fact most would be astonished that people were able to get along without it.

Google is 10 years old today and it has celebrated by upsetting the world’s applecart – again…

Vital Statistics

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From the NYT’s Bits Blog celebration of Google’s 10th birthday.

Google’s age: 10
Microsoft’s age: 33

Google’s revenue in the last 4 quarters: $19.6 billion
Microsoft’s revenue in the last 4 quarters: $60.4 billion

Microsoft’s revenue at age 10: $140 million
($279 million in today’s dollars)

Google’s revenue per hour in the last 4 quarters: $2.2 million
Microsoft’s revenue per hour in the last 4 quarters: $6.9 million

Google net income in the last 4 quarters: $4.85 billion
Microsoft’s net income in the last 4 quarters: $17.6 billion

Google employees, as of June 30th: 19,604
Microsoft employees, as of May 31st: 89,809

Google’s revenue per employee: $1 million
Microsoft revenue per employee: $672,000

Market value of Google: $142 billion
Market value of Microsoft: $241 billion

Number of tech companies with a market value larger than Google’s: 3 (Microsoft, IBM and Apple, in that order)

Worldwide searches on Google in July: 48.7 billion
Worldwide searches on Microsoft in July: 2.3 billion

Worldwide searches per hour on Google in July: 65 million
Worldwide searches per hour on Microsoft in July: 3.1 million

Palin: those names

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The Republicans’ ecstasy at the adoption of Sarah Palin as John McCain’s running mate makes one wonder if they’re sane. But what’s even more weird is her taste in family names: the picture on the front of the IHT lists ‘Track’, ‘Willow’, ‘Trig’, ‘Levi’ and ‘Bristol’. And of course there’s husband Todd, the self-styled “First Dude”, BP employee and champion snowmobiler.

Wonder if she’s related to our own Michael Palin?

Useless information item #245

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If you want to fill a Word document with random boilerplate text to serve as a placeholder for text that hasn’t arrived yet, just type

=rand(a,b)

on a separate line, where a=number of paragraphs you want and b=number of sentences in each para.

Just thought you’d like to know. I saw it in today’s Herald Tribune.

Google pokes a sharp stick in Microsoft’s eye

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You may have seen the news that Google is launching its own (open source) browser, codenamed Chrome. According to the company blog,

Under the hood, we were able to build the foundation of a browser that runs today’s complex web applications much better. By keeping each tab in an isolated “sandbox”, we were able to prevent one tab from crashing another and provide improved protection from rogue sites. We improved speed and responsiveness across the board. We also built a more powerful JavaScript engine, V8, to power the next generation of web applications that aren’t even possible in today’s browsers.

In reality, this takes us back to the original threat/promise of Netscape — the thing that threatened Microsoft so much that it set out to destroy Netscape. This was the idea that the browser was destined to become the key piece of software — almost an operating system in its own right.

Google Chrome takes up that idea, and holds out the promise of making it a reality. As Nick Carr puts it, Chrome

promises a similar leap in the capacity of the cloud to run applications speedily, securely, and simultaneously. Indeed, it is the first browser built from the ground up with the idea of running applications rather than displaying pages. It takes the browser’s file-tab metaphor, a metaphor reflecting the old idea of the web as a collection of pages, and repurposes it for application multitasking. Chrome is the first cloud browser.

See the exposition in Google’s Comic Book for an outline of the thinking that went into Chrome. It’s basically the first multi-threaded browser.

This is an important strategic move by Google. To quote Carr again,

Google is motivated by something much larger than its congenital hatred of Microsoft. It knows that its future, both as a business and as an idea (and Google’s always been both), hinges on the continued rapid expansion of the usefulness of the Internet, which in turn hinges on the continued rapid expansion of the capabilities of web apps, which in turn hinges on rapid improvements in the workings of web browsers.

To Google, the browser has become a weak link in the cloud system – the needle’s eye through which the outputs of the company’s massive data centers usually have to pass to reach the user – and as a result the browser has to be rethought, revamped, retooled, modernized…

I’ve no doubt that this development will be presented in the mainstream media as Google’s “attempt to capture the browser market”. That would be a misconception IMHO. By making Chrome open source Google is ensuring that any browser that seeks to stay competitive has to take up the multi-threading idea. Which will make cloud computing even more pervasive. Which will further increase Google’s importance. As a strategy, it’s fiendishly clever.

And just in case the folks in Cupertino are sniggering, this is a harbinger of things to come on the mobile phone front too. Google has sussed that the (closed) iPhone will be difficult to beat, so its attack is based on an open platform (Android). Smart.

Many thanks to Gerard for the original link (even though he hates the Comic Book!)

LATER: I can’t run Chrome because the first beta release only runs under Windows Vista (if you please), but TechCrunch has been using it and likes it a lot.

STILL LATER: Kate Greene has a useful overview in Tech Review. And the Register published a perceptive piece by Tim Anderson.