Some confusion here about government research and patents. As a government researcher with patents, I will weigh in with an approximation of our patent criteria:<p>1. Increases the potential for commercialization of the technology. If you have an invention which will take effort to commercialize, companies are less likely to spend that effort without any patent protection. Offering an exclusive license on the patent can increase the chance of anyone doing anything with it.<p>2. Fulfill the goals of a collaborative research agreement between the government and a private company.<p>3. Further US manufacturing. The taxpayers pay us to do research to fuel industry in the USA, not Germany or China.<p>4. May lead to commercialization license. This is way down on the list, and total patent royalties amount to &lt;0.1% of our budget.<p>I would guess that the NASA patent set represents cases where the patent did not end up fulfilling one of those goals, and they are releasing it into the wild to see if it does better on its own.