Your favorite D-List Monktress is emerging from her central-AC cave to yell at the n00bs on her lawn. Today’s topic is about idea ownership, and how it doesn’t mean what n00bs think it means. I am really only speaking about the S&E part of STEM, there have already been kerfluffles amongst our nerdy brethren about different conventions for intellectual property and I do not want to go there. I don’t know what mathematicians do and I don’t know what field goes in ‘T’, so disclaimer: This ain’t about you, fool.
First grumble is about the eternal battle of I Came Up with This Awesome Idea and Now My PI Talks About it Like it’s Hir’s. Listen to the D-List monktress when I say you probably did not conceive and formulate the research in question all by yourself. I know, I know, you totally came up with this idea way outside your prof’s area of expertise and hir doesn’t know hir ass from hir elbow anyway, so how could they have helped you? Bullshit. Even if your PI doesn’t know shit for beans about the problem, your PI knows how to sell it. There are always exceptions, but most PI’s know how to get shit published and how to get money to get shit published. This requires a certain amount of salesmanship and political maneuvering you don’t know a thing about. Your PI knows how to paint a big picture question compelling enough so that hir colleagues will be interested in it, and furthermore so that funding agencies want to hand over the monies to see it come to fruition. Even if you come up with the solution to cold fusion, you probably do not know how to obtain institutional support and money for said project.
Figure 1: I mean, your PI clearly lies in wait outside your office just drooling for your brilliant idea fruit to ripen so he can win a Nobel Prize. Clearly
Line break!
