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Category Archives: Freedom
The laboratory and discovery
It’s a nice thought that faculty and students make their discoveries “in the lab” as a recent APLU infographic depicts. There certainly are discoveries made in laboratory work. But discoveries are also made out collecting samples, and in work shops, … Continue reading
Posted in Freedom, Innovation, Policy
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Discovery and Discovery Management, 2
University administrators, too, have oriented their institutions to take advantage of federal funding. Somehow, federal funding increases (to the administrative mind) a university’s prestige, and that prestige then can support raising tuition or getting more funding from state sources and … Continue reading
Discovery and Discovery Management, 1
How do we discover? That’s a question that keeps coming up in my mind. There are books around that work at this point–to point to some recent examples, Ashton’s How to Fly a Horse, Kauffman’s Investigations, Johnson’s Where Good Ideas … Continue reading
Penn State’s Protection Racket, 22: Agency
For all the talk about conflict of interest in Penn State policies, Penn State does have a policy, HR91, that directly addresses conflict of interest. It’s odd that administrators can’t seem to focus their conflict of interest worries there and … Continue reading
Posted in Freedom, Policy, Technology Transfer
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Penn State’s Protection Racket, 19: Conflict of Commitment
Even with this critique we have not got to the bottom of Penn State’s policy treatment of conflict of interest/commitment as a covert IP policy. Conflicts of interest and/or commitment “exist” when someone has “preferential access” to knowledge or university … Continue reading
Posted in Freedom, Policy, Technology Transfer
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Penn State’s Protection Racket, 17: Academic Freedom
Here’s the opening of Penn State’s policy on academic freedom (HR 64): Academic freedom refers to the environment provided by the University that permits faculty members to engage in their scholarly pursuits of teaching, research, and related activities at institutions … Continue reading
Posted in Freedom, Policy
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Key Concept 5: Public Covenant (Addendum)
The Need for a Public Covenant A public covenant attached to a patent property right reflects a determination that the federal patent system, on its own, is not adequate to a given governmental or private purpose. We might say, a … Continue reading
Posted in Bayh-Dole, Bozonet, Freedom
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What should the federal government do with patents it issues to itself? Part 3
Here is one of the most provocative parts of Vannevar Bush’s Science the Endless Frontier: Science Is a Proper Concern of Government It has been basic United States policy that Government should foster the opening of new frontiers. It opened … Continue reading
Posted in Bayh-Dole, Freedom, History, Policy, Sponsored Research
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The IPA and Wisconsin’s 1969 Patent Policy, 14
We can then distinguish three sorts of invention arising in federally funded research at universities: inventive tools, inventive tools that can be sold as products, and articles that can be used only as products. An inventive tool is anything useful … Continue reading
Posted in Bayh-Dole, Freedom, History, Policy
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The Unofficial University of Wisconsin Patent Policy, c. 1960
In his 1962 compendium of university patent policies, Archie Palmer noted that the University of Wisconsin had no formal patent policy. By then, Wisconsin was an outlier among research universities, most of which had some statement regarding patents and inventions. … Continue reading
Posted in Freedom, History, Policy
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