# To what extent is technology research a public good? ### Definitions Annoyingly, starting with clear definitions here is important I’m going to lean on [[narayanamurtiCyclesInventionDiscovery2016]]’s distinctions between discovery/invention (and then use science/and technology as stand ins for them) and research/development: **Discovery/Science** - Creation of new knowledge and facts about the world **Invention** - Accumulation of and creation of knowledge that results in a new tool, device, or process that accomplishes a particular or specific purpose **Research** - Unscheduled quest for new knowledge and inventions whose outcome cannot be predicted. **Development** - *Scheduled* activity with a well-defined outcome in a specified time frame *aimed at the marketplace. Public goods are defined by being 1. Non-rivalrous 2. Non-excludable It’s pretty clear that science research creates public goods There are a lot of case studies of situations where it seems like Here The existence of patents suggests that technology It raises questions about whether the nature of creating new technology has changed over the past 100 years or whether we have just adopted to a changed system, or both. ### Related - [[IBM spent years creating copper interconnects]]