Comment Re:But the gamers won't get any of the royalties (Score 1) 149
When was the last time you read a patent for a chemical or biological agent? The substance itself is just a valid a claim under the patent as the process that created it. US Classification 200/157.68 (definition) is one of the classes the resulting patent could land in if the process involves microwave energy.
If the person(s) who solved this challenge realize this, a landmark legal battle over crowd-sourcing for patent-eligible materials could be on the verge of happening.
Conventional wisdom is also called into question here, when the University system is trumped as the best way to continue research in an age when we could see the most significant advances in bio science come from people who are dynamos for complex rules. i.e. Gamers. Will it change? Likely not, the University system does have many advantages. But a decades-old problem solved in 3 weeks, by a single-generation crowd compared to how many layers of research papers on the topic? That's beyond embarrassing.