The impact of IP protection
Respondents tend to be realistically skeptical
regarding the existence of any research exemption.
Over 80% do not agree with the statement:
“Academic researchers have an academic
research exemption that allows them to use others’
research tools without paying attention to
potential infringement.”
Nevertheless, researchers’ own actions exhibit
scant attention to the risk of infringing existing
patents. Most (77 of 85) report that, in the past
five years, they have never checked whether a
tool that they might need in planned research
is patented. (Similarly, only 5% of the biomedical
scientists surveyed in Walsh, Cho & Cohen2
report that they regularly check for patents on
research inputs.)
If respondents are generally skeptical regarding
a research exemption, why do so few check
for prior patent rights? One answer is that
many scientists do not believe they would be
sued, even if they infringe. Their stance is consistent
with the rational toleration of researcher
infringement often reported by industry patent
holders19.
One respondent declared in a follow-up
interview, “If I do my research and don’t make
money, even if I broke the law, nothing would
happen to me. I am just doing research for
the public.” Like many others, this respondent
contrasts the interest of scientists from
those of the university: “What I want is to do
my research; what they [firms and universities]
want is money. They fought it out and
gave me an agreement, and I signed it. That is
how it works.” This seemingly cynical view of
the objectives of university administrators in
university-industry negotiations, and the contrast
with the objectives of researchers, is confirmed
in the survey of land-grant university
administrators responsible for research programs
and university-industry relationships
in the area of agricultural biology by Glenna
et al.20. They report that administrators rank
provision of research funds first in the list of
advantages of university-industry relationships,
although they acknowledge that their scientists
have a very different ranking of priorities for
selection of research problems, headed by
research enjoyment and curiosity.
Before we asked scientists about their views
of the overall effects of IP protection of research
tools, we explored a narrower question regarding
the possible effects of IP rights on the supply
of tools. We asked respondents to evaluate, on
the 5-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (disagree
strongly) to 5 (agree strongly), the following
statement: