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Category Archives: Freedom
The Faculty Stack, 3: Linking Federal Resources with Free Play
We are working through the idea that faculty independence is an important element in the justification to push federal funding for research activities to universities. For Vannevar Bush, the idea was that the frontiers of science were best explored by … Continue reading
The faculty stack, 2: Basic Research and IP Policy
The idea I will pursue here is that university faculty represent a distinct and important kind of discoverer–researcher, investigator, noodler, gadgeteer, irrelevanteur, loon. Our search for what we cannot imagine depends in having at least some really capable folks out … Continue reading
Posted in Freedom, History, Policy, Vannever Bush
Tagged basic research, free intellect, Vannevar Bush
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The VPR Letters, No. 4
Dear Vice Provost for Research, It’s been a while, and I thought I would drop you another note to help you with your management of university-hosted intellectual property. I once was contacted by a vice provost of research at a … Continue reading
Posted in Bozonet, Commons, Freedom, Policy
Tagged conflict of interest, exclusive license, exploiter, maximal, non-exclusive license, VPR
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The Turning Point in Federal Patent Policy
1971. Here’s where things started to go bad. In 1963, President Kennedy issued a memorandum setting forth executive branch patent policy. When the federal government acquired inventions, the policy stipulated that patents would be made available “through dedication or licensing”–that … Continue reading
Posted in Bayh-Dole, Freedom, History, Policy
Tagged exclusive license, IPA, Kennedy, Latker, Nixon, patent policy
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Effective University Technology Transfer
“Technology transfer” is not so obvious an idea as it may seem. There’s technology transfer from developed nations to “developing” nations. There’s technology transfer from one industry to another. There’s technology transfer from applications in the military to civilian uses. … Continue reading
Posted in Freedom, Technology Transfer
Tagged effective, selectivity, voluntary
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Why dealing in patent monopolies is bad for university research
[updated to add some comments among the elements of the list] Bayh-Dole expands the opportunity for universities to deal in patent monopolies on inventions made in federally supported work. Bayh-Dole does not require such behavior, does not give any special … Continue reading
Posted in Bayh-Dole, Commons, Freedom, Technology Transfer
Tagged Bayh-Dole, exclusivity, patent monopoly
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Vannever Bush on the control of scientists
Here’s Vannever Bush on the institutional desire to control scientists: There is nothing more deadly than control of the activities of scientists and engineers by men who do not really understand, but think they do or must at least give … Continue reading
Posted in Freedom, Innovation, Vannever Bush
Tagged control, unleashing
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WARF, Vitamin D, and the Public Interest, 1
In the 1940s, WARF was basking in the income from licensing its flagship patents–on a way to irradiate food products to produce in them vitamin D. (For an interesting account with lots of details, see Rima D. Apple, a University … Continue reading
Posted in Bayh-Dole, Freedom, History, Policy
Tagged margarine, monopoly meme, vitamin D, Vitamin Technologists, WARF
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Shaping Science
A short version of a Research Enterprise article on Daniel Sarewitz’s “Saving Science” is posted as correspondence at The New Atlantis, where Sarewitz also responds to various comments on his paper. In part, Sarewitz gathers some of those comments into … Continue reading
Posted in Freedom, Innovation, Policy, Vannever Bush
Tagged Daniel Sarewitz, free play, mephitis, shaping, skunk, Vannevar Bush
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The monopoly meme, 5
Now let’s turn to the Bayh-Dole Act and see how it works with the monopoly meme. Short form, if you don’t want to bother, is that Bayh-Dole doesn’t follow the monopoly meme in its gestures, but because these gestures never … Continue reading