Re: patenting colimits?

["David Espinosa" <david@davidespinosa.net>]

We seem to be more excited about patents than categories!  I guess opinions
are cheaper than theorems...

I'd say that citation is the academic form of currency.  Here's a
dictionary:

Academia: Academics rush to publish before their colleagues.
Industry: Companies rush to patent before their competition.

Academia: Academics get quite upset if you use their ideas without citing
them.
Industry: Companies sue you if you use their patents without paying them.

Academia: A generous academic lets you publish his idea (yeah, right).
Industry: A generous businessman lets you profit from his idea (yeah,
right).

Academia: You can publish improvements to someone's basic idea.
Industry: You can patent improvements to someone's basic idea.

So you can see why I find the academic "high horse" attitude towards patents
a bit hypocritical.

BTW, here's a difference between academia and industry, which comes about
because money is more flexible than time:

Academia: An academic *cannot* give you any credit for his existing
publication.
Industry: A company *can* let you profit from its existing patent.

David




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