Publicly Funded Research Not Available to U.S. Businesses

I am currently working on pattern recognition ideas and tried to download a face database for testing. The author did not respond to my emails so I sent this letter:



Victor L. Lechtenberg
Vice Provost for Engagement
Purdue University

John A. Schneider
Assistant Vice Provost for Industry Research
Purdue University

Dear Mr Lechtenberg and Mr Schneider,

I am writing to ask about the policy of Purdue University regarding resources generated by researchers at the University.

Specifically, the AR Face Database (see http://rvl1.ecn.purdue.edu/~aleix/aleix_face_DB.html) is a set of photographs of faces that was built at Purdue to test computer face-recognition algorithms. According to the web page above, it is totally free to "academics wishing to test their software" and has been downloaded by researchers in France Germany and Japan. However, according to the web page, it is apparently not available to any form of commercial entity engaged in similar research here in the United States. In fact, the faculty member who generated the database did not respond to two emails asking for access to the database.

It seems odd to me that resources generated, at least partially, with state and federal funds is freely available to academic researchers world-wide but not to businesses here in the U.S. working on similar research. I would be interested to know if Purdue University condones this practice of discrimination against business researchers and if any Purdue policies cover this situation.

Sincerely,