Maybe William James would be proud, maybe he wouldn’t. The standard measure of an academic has come to be the “cash value” of one’s ideas. Sure, academics must still publish, but to say you only publish is to say you barely even breathe. One’s worth is measured more by the number of patents one has, and on the cash return on those patents.

Now, the collegial atmosphere and sense of contribution to one’s community does still exist. Patents are roughly divided into two types: private and common. A private patent is a lot like that which we’re used to; it prevents others from using one’s idea without proper compensation.

Common patents, however, are considered part of an academic’s contribution to their community, and—at least on paper&mdahs;half of an acacdemic’s patents must be common. Common patents were borne out of the creative commons idea of an “open copyright,” and their origin shows inthe basic principles. A common patent is open for others to use as long as the users give due credit, to only create common patents themselves from any work that incorporates the common patent (“Common patents stay common”), and to share some of any profits with the patent holder.

Simple and honest ideas, all three of these. Any first grade teacher would be proud. Give as much credit as you should. Help those who have helped you. Share and share alike.

Unfortunately, when the simple and honest idea of common patents graduates into the scheming, hungry world, it had to adapt to survive. To always give due credit creates an ever-growing lineage of any idea that must be accurately traced and reported to its very beginning. This may be great for etymologists and historians, but is quite a bugbear to anyone else. Credit often waved aside with pat phrases like “with due acknowledgement given to those listed inthe general registry regarding patent numbers. . . .” And if all patents were common patents, then it would be no trouble creating only common patents from common patents. Trouble arrises when an inventor wants to combine a common and a private patent in the same project.

However, as much trouble as both of these problems cause, neither prevents common patents from being among the most-wdiley used patents. Indeed, it is estimated that the average common patent is used an average of 4.56 times in its life whereas a private patent is used only 1.15 times. This translates into the average common patent giving birth to 2.16 other patents compared to the average private patents leading to .98 other patents.

So, there is money in common patents. And one of the three pillars of common patents is to give a fair share of the profit to the owners of the common patents you used in your work. All of them. Even though a simlpe formula has been decreed by the courts as to what is a fair share, and even if the “due credit geneology&rquo; is accurately mapped (and it is’t always), finding who owes whom money (and how much) is a perpetual game. Indeed, all academic departments (as well as many individual academics) have offices whose sole purpose is to track down money owed. For the money one receives from common patents being used by others makes up most of the average academic’s income.

As if this all wasn’t complicated enough, owners of common (and private) patents started borrowing against the money coming in from their patents. After all, a widely used patent is a very diverisified investment. Some ambitious investors even borrow against patents not yet created; they simply sell their ideas. This lending practice created its own stock exchange, so that “thought stocks” are now sold on the open market next to soy beans, iridium, and pork bellies.