Comment Talk to us first if you wish to patent the changes (Score 1) 63
It's very common these days for companies to allow universities to use their technology at the cost of tying the company into the university's patent revenue. And of course this is often publicly-funded research, so not only is the taxpayer paying for the development of patents used to sue that same taxpayer, the patents go directly to a company from academia.
The net effect is to feed intellectual property centered companies at the expense of the technology sector in general and small technology companies in particular.