Patents seem an essential element of the economic machine. Protecting inventions companies that do research, they avoid the too easy to copy by competitors. Thus, the company is only to generate income from his invention: the traditional justification for patents is that they allow a return on research efforts. Indirectly, they encourage such research.

In the academic scientific research (in universities for example), we can assume that there is no problem of incitement to research: the researchers are there to seek, and they are paid whatever happens to it . Most so-called fundamental discoveries (eg, theory of relativity, or the discovery of the spin) have never been patent. However, this may

be the case for some applied research. For example, on the spintronics discovered by the German Peter Grünberg and Albert Fert French (who have earned them the Nobel Prize for Physics in 2007) have been patent in due form. For basic research - and this is what interests us more - we can consider that researchers are absolutely altruistic, and they do not need to be encouraged. But you can also try to understand their behavior under the assumption that they reason in terms of their reputation or their credit. In the academic tradition, this recognition is based mainly on the citation of''articles''.

The items are publications of researchers work in professional journals (eg Nature or Science). In their research, scientists rely on other items, and it is customary to cite. Readers know and exactly what the author refers, and they may be pertinent.

Conversely, it becomes possible to measure (so very rough and criticism) the importance of a particular item by counting the number of citations which is the subject. A high-quality articles that revolutionizes a field will always be taken as a starting point, and will be the subject of numerous citations. Various indicators moving in the academic world to measure the impact or value of a given research. Here, our purpose is not to criticize these bibliometric indicators, and we take as given.

Is there no possible comparison between the two systems, one with patents, the other with citations? In the economic world, the patent provides that the revenues of the invention will go to the company that has invested in research. Similarly, the publication of an article in a journal that guarantees the use of scientific discovery will be properly citing the author. Royalties are then academic recognition that the intellectual author of the article was subsequently rewarded. Thus, we can consider that the tradition of publication and citation can encourage the desire for academic recognition. An incentive is for the selfishness of actors, but actually benefit the whole society: industrial inventions in one case, new knowledge in the other (see our previous article on this subject).

A major difference exists, however, a patent would prevent reuse of the invention, but a scientific publication specifically makes public the entire contents of the discovery. Why is the model of full disclosure and reusable can be viable for scientists? This is what we will discuss in a future article, drawing on an article by Bessen and Maskin.