Slashdot’s recent discussion of how an Australian research/tech transfer agency enforced its patent rights against 14 of the world’s largest tech companies has what everybody should view as a happy ending: reinvestment.
Australia’s CSIRO has “injected $150 million from the proceeds of its wi-fi technology to the once-defunct science and industry endowment fund, originally established by parliament in 1926” according to the Aussie news article. The article also has a great quote:
It’s very important that when you have a success like this, you re-invest it back into the wellspring,” CSIRO boss Megan Clark said.
Exactly! This is what the patent system is supposed to be all about. Rewarding innovation creation and providing incentives for new research. Here, it’s a government agency that benefits. But it could be a small IT company that uses patents to also invest back into the “wellspring.”