Finished Michael Crichton's "Next". I hope that people who read this are not taking some of his statements as facts. Although it is true that the Congress has mandated that Universities try to patent things that the faculty develop it is also true that the companies will not try to develop things without patent protection. Why spend all the money on development when someone can jump on the bandwagon at the end. They need to recover some of their money - not all projects taken to the development stage work out. Now it is another matter for the price they set to recover their investment and make a profit but the scientist does not play a role in this in spite of the implication from the book. The other issue is how universities, especially public ones, are supported. For big research based universities the proportion of the budget that comes from the state is about 20%. In fact faculty are mandated even at public universities to bring in a significant proportion of their salary from outside sources (20% here). All the research is supported from outside sources - their is no money in the budget for the school to support research. Believe it or not the vast majority of scientists do not measure their success as the size of their compensation - their prestige with their colleagues is the driving force.