My recent submission on patents started me thinking about the whole process of licensing a patent for supplementary development and how that suppresses innovation. The recent request that MIT made for $75000 for an up front royalty payment from a student on the student’s own idea since MIT automatically owned the patent quashes innovation in direct contradiction to the entire spirit of the patent law conception. Since the student used MIT facilities to work out the idea MIT should gain something out of the development but instead of a huge up front payment it would be more encouraging for innovation for MIT to take a reasonable percentage of the earnings of the idea once it pays off. That way a patent would be more or less free to be used by anyone as long as the use was registered with the owner and a good many more creative people would be free to experiment with it to see if a viable and profitable use could be found. Since laws like this are more or less set in concrete I doubt anything of this nature will occur but it seems to me the community would benefit greatly if it could be accepted.

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