Universities seem intent on forsaking their traditional values with the expected results. Enrollments are down significantly and an increasing number of parents are performing cost/benefit analyses that don’t bode well for an improvement of those enrollment figures. One would think, therefore, that universities would avoid associating themselves with sketchy enterprises that are universally reviled among right thinking people of every political persuasion.
But no. A consortium of topnotch universities has come up with the perfect plan to deal with declining revenues: they’ve decided to become patent trolls. They’re going to pool their (mostly) low quality patents and seek licensing fees from businesses that they believe might be infringing.
The majority of these universities (there’s a list at the link) are public institutions and all of them are receiving grants that fund their research from pubic monies. One would think, therefore, that the results of their research would belong to the public and be available to all to use. But not according to the universities that want us to pay for the research and then pay again to use it.
When the history of the university system’s failure is written, this sorry chapter will certainly be featured. Rather than focusing on their traditional roles of education and expanding knowledge, they decided to exploit those who are trying to earn a living and providing employment to others. This won’t stop them of course. They’ll continue on their self destructive path until an annoyed pubic has laws passed putting their research results in the public domain. When that happens, their wails of anguish and outrage will be ignored by the public they were so happy to exploit.