Re: [ccp4bb]: What has been will be again,what has been done will be

[Kevin Cowtan <cowtan@ysbl.york.ac.uk>]

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What I find worrying is that those of us who are committed to the scientific 
method and refuse to have our work patented may eventually be forced out of 
science.

If other build on our work, but patent theirs so we cannot in turn build 
further, then we are eventually excluded from the field.

The easy thing is to give in and join the patent rat race. The hard thing is 
to make the stand.

But I would encourage everyone to make that stand. We can start be including 
an intellectual propert statement in every publication, stating that we have 
not applied for and do not intend to apply for any patents on the work in the 
paper.

Eventually, if the situation deteriorates, we might consider asking journals 
not to publish patented material. Such publication is redundent, since (a) 
the patent is a sufficient form of publication in itself, and (b) the 
material is of no use to the borader community anyway.

The ideas in Buccaneer and Pirate are patentable (although still 
insufficiently tested for publication), but will not be patented.

-- 
Structural Biology Laboratory, University of York, York, YO10 5YW, UK