Two researchers in psychiatry from University of Colombo in Sri Lanka criticized the practice of copyrighting measurement scales, tests, and related technologies used in their field and other disciplines, saying that the practice hinders the advance of medical science. Varuni de Silva and Raveen Hanwella published their commentary, “Why are we copyrighting science?”, in this week’s issue of the British Medical Journal (paid subscription required).
The authors contend that protecting the intellectual property of commonly used measurements and techniques, limits their access to other researchers and raises the cost of conducting research. Many of these same copyrighted scales, including a common general health questionnaire and mental state examination, are also used in clinical practice, and thus limitations on their use can have an impact on patient assessments.
Hanwella and de Silva note that in some cases intellectual property protections are added to these tools after they have become accepted in the field. The measurements may be freely available when initially published, but are later copyrighted when they gain a following.
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