Question: Why Publish?

[72doug2,2S]

If you want to be on tenure track at a University being published is an expectation, even part of the job. Teach, research, be published.

[pavulon]

Is university tenure what it once was?

[unclebilly]

One the technical article side here is one more reason to publish, this is to block competitors from filing patents on a particular method or subject matter.

At my previous employer, if we felt that filing a patent might result in a weak patent, we would instead publish a paper at a technical conference. This would prevent others from filing a patent (already in the unlucky domain) and give us license to practice said invention.

We don't do this enough in my current field, instead everything is filed and because the patent examiners have a really poor understanding of he oil tach, nearly everything gets allowed. This results in multiple entities having nearly identical patents and a legal nightmare.

[Shaun @ Tru6]

Originally Posted by unclebilly

One the technical article side here is one more reason to publish, this is to block competitors from filing patents on a particular method or subject matter.

Thank you, this may have just helped me a lot!

[72doug2,2S]

Originally Posted by pavulon

Is university tenure what it once was?

Not speaking personally, but they say it isn't what it was. Still there are plenty waiting in the aisles to come on board.

My advisor in grad school once said, "the dew has left those petals."

[nostatic]

Originally Posted by Noah930

Says the academician...

Not much ivory on me these days. By day I design/build actual systems, by night I make music. "Create or die" is just the way I look at life.

"Publish or perish" is another story. I rail against the tenure system (didn't make me the most popular faculty member in meetings back in the day) and plenty of schools don't use it. It is an artifact of when academic research was at risk due to the whims of administrators. Now research is at the whims of funding which is a different dynamic. Tenure doesn't give you any advantages imho and instead becomes an impediment for both the individual as well as the institution.