| MadSci Network: Science History |
Hi Re'junei,
Thank you for your question. Unfortunately for me, your question is more about politics, ethics and law, and less so of science in general. Anyway, I'll take a stab at it, but please remember I'm not a real expert on these matters.
You are attempting to write a persuasive essay on why "scientists should have the right to keep their inventions from the governments greedy grasps." You cite examples of scientists who had their inventions taken from them by government order. The truth of the matter is, however, subtle, and I'll try to explain how in general the ownership of scientific ideas is handled.
In order to establish who owns an idea, it is crucial to establish who pays the scientist. Science is not cheap, both in salaries and equipment. I suppose some rare people are independently wealthy and can do science without being paid, but in most cases, the scientist works for someone. This might be the government, a government agency, a lab, a university, or a company. In principle, the rights to the invention belong to the person who pays you.
In the case of Otto Hahn, Wikipedia [1] tells us he worked at a university. Universities are nowadays government-owned, and university scholars are usually expected to publish their findings. This makes their ideas unpatentable and available to all of mankind. I'm not sure this was mandated in the time of Hahn, but it was very common to do so. In fact, for many scholars, the idea of spreading knowledge to all of mankind is one of the main driving factors for being a scholar. They don't mind that our knowledge is taken; in fact, it is offered for the benefit of all. In Hahn's case, it is unfortunate that the fruits of his intellect were used to kill tens of thousands of people with the atomic bomb, but he can hardly be held responsible for that.
Many government-owned institutes, such as labs, univerities and even branches of the military publish their findings. They do this for many reasons, among which making our planet a better place to live, prestige and drawing in good scholars. In fact, even some (large) private companies do this, for much the same reasons. They also sometimes do it as a kind of "trailer" for other technology or products they do charge for.
In case of private companies, scientists often either patent their technology or ideas or keep them a secret. Patents expire and are expensive, but secrets can get spread, so it's often a tough choice. In this case, inventions only rarely get claimed by the government. A rather well-known example if that of Nikolaus Otto, who made very important contributions to the invention of the car, namely a good four-stroke car engine. Oversimplifying [2], in Otto's case, the patent was found to cover his implementation, not the general principle. This is common: patents can be fairly narrow in scope. I could be wrong, but I think a good way of thinking about it is that patents cover an implementation of an idea, not the idea itself. Patent law is a very difficult and specialistic subject, and I'm not an expert, so I can't give you much more details. In Otto's case, a judge decided that the patent was invalid, and in principle, judges are impartial. Even though he lost the case, he had a "fair chance", so to speak.
In fact, I think it is easier to argue the opposite point: that the protection offered by patents can be too strong at times. Consider, for instance, the case of AIDS. Some pharmaceutical companies hold patents for AIDS drugs. These drugs are so expensive (in order to recoup development and marketing costs) that they cannot be afforded by people in third - world countries [3], who are literally dying by the millions of AIDS. One might argue that their fate is more important than patent law. Of course, one might also argue that the drugs wouldn't have been developed in the first place if they couldn't have been patented.
As a personal note, I've been doing both types of research: research at a university that has been published and can be read by people all across the world, and research for a company that is a well-guarded secret. Both are rewarding in their own way: contributing to the Knowledge of Mankind, and publishing in the same scientific journal where the great minds published really was very nice. On the other hand, making something that actually works, in practice is also quite rewarding, as it shows that one's ideas also work in the real world. Luckily, as a scientist, both options are wide open!
In summary, I think the main point is that many scientists willingly distribute their knowledge. In rare cases, this knowledge is used for worse, but in most cases, it helps advancing mankind. For private research, patents can be used to prevent other people from using one's invention, although their protection is not absolute, and in general doesn't necessarily cover all implementations of an idea.
I hope this is useful for writing your essay.
Regards,
Bart Broks
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