Asked who owned the patent on his polio vaccine, he said you might as well patent the sun

Jonas Salk's inactivated polio vaccine was proven safe and effective in a 1954 trial of 1.8 million children, and helped end polio's grip on the developed world within a decade. Salk never patented it, telling journalist Edward R. Murrow: 'Could you patent the sun?'

— Wikipedia contributors, Jonas Salk — Polio vaccine field trial results announced 1955