Devial

That logic applies identically to a valid patent. For the issues you mention, there is no distinction between the patent being filed at the PTO and still valid, or being filled at the PTO and disclaimed. In terms of the enforcibility, and patentability of a ""new"" inventions with prior art, there is no legal distinction whatsoever between the prior art being a disclaimed or a valid patent, so I don't think that's a valid reason to not disclaim it.

Anyone who wants to repatent the process and harass people using it, would have an equally hard/easy time doing so, if the patent is disclaimed or valid.

The only real legal distinction between a disclaimed and valid patent is that the orignal patent holder can't enforce the disclaimed one. And since that was the intended goal here, disclaimment feels like the obvious best choice.

A lot of them been so indoctrinated into mistrusting authorities and instutions, that they basically disbelieve anything they say on principle.

And al the evidence, all the scientists telling them they're wrong just ends up reinforcing their belief in some giant conspiracy.

It's sadly been shown in more than one study that changing the mind of conspiracy theorists with reason, argumens or evidence is basically impossible. It's almost a self preservation instict against cognitive dissonance. They were so sure they were right, and now so one is telling them they're not. That feels shit, and it feels shit to accept you were wrong about something you so fervently insisted was true. So their brains basically go into self defense mode, and just reject and attack anything that threatens the shaky fundamentals of their entire belief system. The best thing you can attmept to do is to distract them. Get them to talk and think about other things. When they mention the conspiracy, don't engage, don't argue how they're wrong, they'll just dig their heels in deeper, just change the topic to something else. Force them to spend less time in their delusions. Eventually, if you're lucky, they might gain enough distance to the topic, and stop caring about it enough that they're ready to start accepting how batshit insane those conspiracies are.

To quote Hbomberguy:

"The anti vaccine movement had next to no evidence [27] years ago, and they have even less today"

Ok, that is a fair point I hadn't previosuly considered. Though disclaiming a patent doesn't loose you all legal recourse.

If someone else tries to repatent it, even if it gets approved, you can still file a challenge against the new patent with the PTO. You (or anyone else, really) would also have a virtually guaranteed court win, even if someone got the patent through and tried to enforce it. All you'd have to prove in court is that prior art of the invention exists, therefore the patent is invalid and unenforceable, granted or not, so it's unlikely someone would even bother trying to enforce such a patent. A previous, diclaimed patent, of literally the identical technology being on record is pretty iron clad and unavoidable evidence that the patent isn't original.

I mean, that's better than selling to a private person, still feels weird, since disclaiming a patent is absolutely possible, and has a 100% chance of leading to the desired outcome, vs whatever small chance there may be that the University starts taking profits on it. Or even just sees themselves forced to sell the patent, because of potential financial issues.

Yeah, the risk is small, but eliminating it in it's entirety would've been easily possible, so it just feels a bit weird he didn't do it.

If he wanted it to be freely available, why did he even sell the patent ? Just disclaim at the patent office. Selling is just asking the new holder to start enforcing.