Patents should not be an obstacle for innovation
Given that patents started to move upstream, meaning that they started focusing on "research tools" (which is my case with Dispertech, Solbion, and most of my projects), they may become bottlenecks for open innovation schemes.
When academic researchers start acting in a secretive way, trying to protect their inventions, it'll be science as a whole that suffers.
Patents, like papers, should allow to build on, not just to block others from doing the same. But the incentives are twisted, and the commercial opportunities are poorly transmitted and explained to researchers.
The only way I see forward is through a gradual reinterpretation of patent law, that ensures the upkeep of the economic incentives that push innovation, and guarantee that scientists can push boundaries in an open, exploratory way, as they have been doing for decades.
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