How do I contribute to the scientific community without publishing research in a scientific journal?

Question

I do not study physics at the university, but I have a very important scientific research. I do not think that a magazine will accept my research, though, because I am not sufficiently specialized in the field. Is there any way to obtain intellectual property for my research without publishing it in a magazine? Or are there any physics magazines for beginners that preserve intellectual property rights?

Answer 1

You're worrying about the wrong thing. The danger is not that someone will steal your work, it's that nobody will ever read it. The reason for this is:

1. In the modern age, it's very easy to prove that you did the work first. Everything is timestamped.
2. There are more good ideas to work on than anyone has time to pursue. Thinking of a cool idea is the easy part, doing the work to show it's useful is hard.
3. Lots of not so useful ideas are being pushed too, so filtering through them to find the useful ideas can be hard.

It is very likely that any useful work builds on other work. If that is not true of your work, then honestly, you should probably read a bit more of the literature, because you are likely repeating something that already exists.

When you have identified who's work you are building on, check if they are still alive. If they are not still alive, find out who else has cited/ or built upon their work. That is the person you should contact. Write them a quick email, saying you have written a paper that is related to their work. Tell them a bit about it and attach your paper. This person is in the best place to help you find an appropriate way to circulate your contribution.

For physics, that would probably be the arxiv, and the arxiv describes almost exactly what I have just suggested here; https://arxiv.org/help/endorsement

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Edit; Buffy's comment highlighted that I should probably say something about the licences when you do find someone to endorse you on the arxiv. Arxiv requires that you chose one of these licences;

• grant arXiv.org a non-exclusive and irrevocable license to distribute the article, and certify that he/she has the right to grant this license;

• certify that the work is available under one of the following Creative Commons licenses and that he/she has the right to assign this license:

  • Creative Commons Attribution license (CC BY 4.0)
  • Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license (CC BY-SA 4.0)
  • Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-ShareAlike license (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0);

• or dedicate the work to the public domain by associating the Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication (CC0 1.0) with the submission.

This part will be easy.

Answer 2

So you don't study the subject, and you aren't specialised in the field you are researching, your research is important according to yourself, and you are primarily concerned with getting credit for your results, rather than determining whether your results are correct, new, or important to other people.

These are warning signs. There is a very high chance your research is not correct, not new, or not important; and you almost certainly do not (currently) have the proper knowledge or skills to assess any of those things yourself. If your motivation is to contribute your results to the scientific community, the best way to start would be to get some independent advice from somebody who can assess whether your results are correct, new, and important.

Keep an open mind; find somebody suitably qualified, and ask them if your work has any merit. Don't tell them you are sure it does, because you shouldn't be sure of that in the first place. And if they tell you your work is flawed, believe them, otherwise you will become a crank.

Answer 3

In most of the world, what ever you write, provided that it has creative elements, is yours by right. You have all copyrights to it until you give them up.

In fact, part of the normal publishing process is to give up your copyright to a journal.

If you publish it yourself, say on a web site you have, and can claim, "all rights reserved".

That doesn't mean, however, that no one can use or build upon what you write, provided that they cite it.

Devices, as opposed to creative writings and such, may need to be patented for you to keep rights.

However, the rules vary somewhat, so "most of the world" doesn't mean "all of the world".

The only way to be sure that you "can't/won't" be published is to submit a paper for publication and see what happens. Affiliation with a university is not a requirement, nor is the background of the author. Avoid "predatory publishers", however, who will publish anything and take your money to do so. You will need to meet the usual standards of "novelty" and quality and make sure that you can situate your work within the larger scientific body of knowledge with appropriate citation, but that is the case for everyone.

And, it is possible for some to enter into collaborations with people who do publish, provided you can meet them. This will likely result in publication, of course.

Answer 4

What are you trying to achieve?

You say you want to "obtain intellectual property for my research", but why?

And as @RichardHardy points out, your question asks how you can make a contribution, which is entirely separate from obtaining intellectual property (or recognition) in respect of that contribution.

Do you want the kudos that comes from being identified as the originator? Do you want to reach a wide readership? Do you want to exploit the idea commercially? Do you just want to prevent other people exploiting the idea? Or do you just (as the question suggests) want to help in the advancement of knowledge?

Publishing your ideas in a blog, with a copyright notice at the bottom, would protect your IPR. But it wouldn't help you to gain any revenue from your IPR, and unless you find a way of publicising the existence of your blog, there's no guarantee that anyone would read it.

Answer 5

File for a patent at the US Patent and Trade Office if you're concerned that someone might steal your work or monetize on a similar idea before you're capable of doing it.

Note that you can only get a physical component, system, manufacturable product, or process patented. It has to have real-world application and in general solve a problem in a unique way that no other patent accomplishes. An abstract idea or algorithm can not be patented. But a procedure related to that abstraction or algorithm can.

Plants and ornamental design features can also be patented under different applications.

Before filing, make sure that your idea is novel and consider how you will run your business, if it's something you plan to sell to consumers. This will require some research into existing patents. Also consider contacting a registered patent lawyer or representative to help streamline the process.

This is just one solution other than publishing into peer-reviewed journals, and it may / may not apply to you. I'm not professing it's the only solution.