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RE: Particle Physics Might Save Your Life! Take 1: Cancer Treatment via Hadron Therapy.

in #steemit • 8 years ago

Hi Claudio,

Thanks a lot for this nice article. Funnily enough, I was considering applying to the IBA company (developing tools for hadrontherapy) before deciding to go for academia :)

One thing that I think is good to recall is that the know-how developed in the context of particle physics is transferred for free to the rest of humanity. There is no patent attached to that.

8 years ago in #steemit by
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     8 years ago (edited) 

    Thank you for your comment. What you say is true to a large extent, especially for medical applications, but does not apply to the whole of technology transfers from academia to industry...Many public research institutions do have patent portfolios and revenue sharing agreements with industry. Having said that, when I was in charge of all this at CERN, I advocated an impact-driven (rather than revenue-driven) approach to technology transfer... For a public research institution, spreading the news that we are saving lives is much more valuable than getting 1 million dollar per year in the bank...
    The Web was invented at CERN, and they get no royalties whatsoever...

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     8 years ago  

    Thanks for the clarifications!

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