[ajb]

It's worth noting that this lab has a lot of patents: https://yaghi.berkeley.edu/publications.html#patent

It's not clear that this particular chemical is subject to a patent application, but they have applied for a patent on the entire class of chemicals: https://patents.google.com/patent/US20220370981A1

I'm conflicted about this. while I'm skeptical about most patents this is exactly the kind of invention that patents are supposed to incentivise, and this guy obviously deserves a reward if his invention, like, literally saves the world. But - reading between the lines, while it's effective, it sounds like it's not yet cost effective. And making something cost effective is exactly the kind of thing that patents that restrict development to a single lab (which is what a class patent will do) will cause problems with.

Probably the best answer would be for someone rich to buy him out and licence it for free.