This is not a NASA Website. You might learn something. It's YOUR space agency. Get involved. Take it back. Make it work - for YOU.
Commercialization

Bursting The NASA Spinoff Myth

By Keith Cowing
NASA Watch
April 1, 2012
Filed under , , , ,

NASA Lands $75,000 in Patent Auction, Wired
“The market can be cruel, but it doesn’t lie: Software development algorithms are worth more than cool nanotechnology swarming technologies. That’s what the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) found out this week when it tried to auction three lots of its Goddard Space Flight Center software patents at an event run by the ICAP Patent brokerage. The software development patents sold for $75,000. With a starting price of $50,000, nobody bid on the nanotechnology stuff. And they also steered clear of a bargain-basement $30,000 NASA patent that covered a fancy way of reporting a broken smoke detector.”
Keith’s note: Its great that the taxpayer gets some return on its investment in NASA research. But rest assured NASA won’t tell you what it spent to generate this research in the first place. Rest assured, it was a lot more than $75,000. Not only does the agency not want you to know what its total investment was, it could not even figure out what it spent to generate this intellectual property that was auctioned, even if it wanted to tell you. As for the patents that did not sell, this does not mean that the initial research was not warranted. But it does blow a hole in the notion that all of the cool stuff NASA does is inherently sexy (i.e. patentable).

NASA Watch founder, Explorers Club Fellow, ex-NASA, Away Teams, Journalist, Space & Astrobiology, Lapsed climber.

23 responses to “Bursting The NASA Spinoff Myth”

  1. eech1234 says:
    0
    0

    It could also mean that the kind of people who would use the nanotech and smoke detector patents don’t spend their time trolling whatever noticeboards the patent auction was posted on.  Software patents are a huge business (a discussion of which is far beyond the scope of a single comment on this forum). Software companies routinely buy other companies for no reason other than to amass huge numbers of patents; this is more or less unheard of in most other fields.

  2. John Kavanagh says:
    0
    0

    NASA should try to auction off the Space Launch System.

  3. RandomFeedback says:
    0
    0

    hello, Keith – NASA is not a for profit agency, so why the rant about the investment and return.  “Spinoff” means it was a technology needed for a NASA purpose, which had other benefits.  It doesn’t mean an investment made for the purpose of reaping monetary gain.

    • Steve Whitfield says:
      0
      0

      RF,
       
      I read through the Spinoff document every year.  And while some of the stuff is really cool, I’m hard pressed to figure out how many of these items, or whatever items lead to them, were/are the result of “technology needed for a NASA purpose.”  That doesn’t make these things any less useful, to my mind, but they do seem like either industry requests or pet projects, rather than results or offshoots of tech/items needed by NASA.  But then, I’m one of those people who think that the Spinoffs, while not a NASA goal, are still valuable and most times worth the money spent on them.
       
      That said, I think Keith has a good point.  At a time when budgets are shrinking and every dollar should be used as effectively as possible, is NASA selling off patents for much less than they cost to develop?  I think it would be much better to licence use of the patents (if NASA is allowed to do so) or just hang on to them if they don’t at least sell for what they cost, since they may be of more value at a later date.  If nothing else, they would be assets on the books if NASA is forced to liquidate, which I’d say isn’t impossible the way things are going.
       
      Steve

      • RandomFeedback says:
        0
        0

        NASA could never be forced to liquidate.  If NASA ceased to exist, NASA’s money would be distributed to other parts of the federal government. There are no shareholders, it’s a government entity, and a discretionary one at that – so,theoretically, it could disappear/dissolve. But if it did, the amount of money on its balance sheets would not matter. That said, I think $$ from patents can actually be re-invested in NASA’s R&T budgets, so it is wise to get the most bang for the buck.  Just saying that typical business models don’t apply, many strings are attached to government funding.

        • Steve Whitfield says:
          0
          0

          RF,

          I agree with you that budget money would be redistributed (or reabsorbed), but I don’t see how they can redistribute assets, such as patents and most capital equipment.  It would have to be turned into money first using whatever method/name applies to government agencies.  The alternative is to stick it all in warehouses, which would cost money every year and be equivalent to scrapping everything.  I would think there must be some way to “liquidate” it, whatever the appropriate term is.

          Steve

    • kcowing says:
      0
      0

      Perhaps you should communicate this to the NASA hype machine – the one that seems determined to make people think that all of these spinoffs are a “return on an investment”.

  4. dogstar29 says:
    0
    0

    If NASA wants to develop useful technology it should stop requiring that every researcher create a myth that his/her work is part of the “critical path” to the moon and start asking US industry what it needs to compete in a competitive world. I would also note that already miniscule discretionary R&T funds were slashed this year, while funding for Constellation (sorry, SLS/Orion) was increased.

    • Steve Whitfield says:
      0
      0

      DS3,

      Don’t be sorry for calling it what it is.

      Steve

    • Anonymous says:
      0
      0

      The NACA model was a good all through the first half of the 20th century. That aspect of NASA could be strengthened to everyone’s profit.

  5. Doug Booker says:
    0
    0

    Wouldn’t it be more beneficial to NASA and the taxpayers if the LICENSED these patents?  I think getting say $1 or $0.50 per widget would result in more income for NASA.  What if there were some technology that were used in a iPhone or Droid, wouldn’t you rather be getting a piece of the action?

    Think of how much more money we could waste on the JSWT and SLS.

    • dogstar29 says:
      0
      0

      I believe that NASA patents are often freely licensed to US companies because they represent technology developed at taxpayer expense. If foreign companies want to license them I believe NASA would charge for it. The sale of the patent is something different than licensing; it allows the buyer to improve on the patent and maybe build something better.

  6. mmeijeri says:
    0
    0

    Software patents are a bad idea, so I guess I can add this to my list of thing NASA does that I dislike.

    • Steve Whitfield says:
      0
      0

      mmeijeri,

      Please explain; why do you think software patents are a bad idea?  How else would you propose to protect the intellectual property and all of the time and money that went into the software development?  You’re not one of those people who believes it should all be open source freeware I hope.  That would lead to the decline of reliable software.

      Steve

      • mmeijeri says:
        0
        0

         Copyright is the appropriate way to protect software IP.

      • eech1234 says:
        0
        0

        The problem with software patents is that they are generally granted for obvious things more often than for things that actually need protecting.  They’re also granted for things that are done the exact same way in real life, and for things already done by other people.  Apple has a patent on “slide to unlock” — modeled on the slide lock used on a fence door.  Twitter has a patent on the “refresh” button.

        http://paulgraham.com/softw… has a good take on the argument.  The USPTO doesn’t understand when something is obvious and when something is truly revolutionary.  Imagine if I tried to patent the concept of a rocket nozzle gimbal — as opposed to a specific mechanism.  That’s the issue at hand here.

        • Chris B says:
          0
          0

           The USPTO doesn’t care whether something is obvious or revolutionary. They operate on the Reaganomics model. The patent office no longer examine patents, they collect a “rent”, rubber stamp the applications, and return the “profit” to the government to be spent on the military industrial complex’s latest missile program.

          The government then brags about the “innovation” and “efficiency” they’re causing, citing patent approval numbers, ignoring the fact that everyone moved to China.

    • David_McEwen says:
      0
      0

      A relevant perspective on the patent situation:

      http://news.cnet.com/8301-3

      To quote from the opinion piece:

      “Patent law simply wasn’t designed for the always changing, rapidly
      developing world of software. Inventing a way for “generating a feed of
      stories” isn’t the same as inventing a new type of fuel injection system
      or a new ultralight alloy for space travel. But software companies file
      patents like crazy because companies like Yahoo get desperate and start
      suing, and your only defense is to have your own stockpile of patents
      that will help you negotiate a settlement faster.

      It’s the tech industry’s version of mutually assured destruction. And
      all the while, the patent situation inches closer toward a crisis that
      will make the SOPA controversy look like a walk in the park.”

  7. Andy Evans says:
    0
    0

    Nanotechnology and nano-materials are making their way to maturity, and those folks got a bargain.  NASA is a small player in those areas.  DOE has a nano phase material research facility at Oak Ridge.  NASA’s past interest in nanotechnology has been in developing new materials that are self-healing, highly redundant systems, and flight surfaces that can change autonomously.  Unfortunately, NASA doesn’t do a lot of cross-agency coordination in their technology maturation.

    • Steve Whitfield says:
      0
      0

      Andy,

      When we combine your “cross-agency coordination” comment with DogStar3’s “asking US industry” comment above, I think you guys have nailed it firmly.  NASA is a job for some and a hobby for others, but mostly these days, it seems that NASA’s goal is purely to exist for the sake of existing.  Connecting again with industry and other gov agencies (like it used to, as did NACA before it), I think that NASA could once again have a well-defined purpose instead of just a profound-sounding mission statement.

      Steve