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Software and Patents

Publications are by no means the only important tangible product of CS faculty. Software artifacts and patented inventions are equally important.

Software developed by universities is generally published by distributing it for free over the Internet. Occasionally, a university may make money by commericalizing a piece of software, but this is rare. For example, the University of California is famous for development of the BSD Unix operating system, though it is reported to have made virtually no money on it after the legal and administrative costs of licensing are taken into account. There are many good reasons for giving away university developed software, including the confusing complexity of ownership rights when there are multiple funding sources and multiple authors (possibly at different universities), and time delays caused by lawyers working out contracting and licensing terms. Most important, most attempts at commericalization fail - perhaps because the software is not good enough, or because the commercial licensee does not do a good enough job of promoting. Thus, the best way to maximize the impact is to make the software available right away, for free, at least for non-commercial uses.

The quality of a software artifact can be judged by the impact it has on practice. Impact can be measured by the degree to which people use it, or take it and modify it for further use, or imitate it.

The ideas behind some software artifacts can be patented. For a long time, the standards for issuance of software patents were very tough, but recently the standards have been relaxed drastically, resulting in a comparative flood of software patents. This phenomenon is not universally regarded as a good thing by CS academics and professionals. (The flood of patents - some on ideas that have been in general use for a long time - and the fact that there is no way to find out about patents that have been applied for but not yet granted, have led to fear of legal entanglements, which in turn has tended to inhibit creativity.) However, obtaining a patent is still considered a personal achievement.

The quality of a patented invention is general judged by whether it makes money, since no one can use the idea without a license.


next up previous
Next: Co-Authoring Up: CS Publications Previous: Books
Ted Baker
2001-09-04