Tag Archives: patents

A sense of proportion–1

Posted on December 3, 2019 by Gerald Barnett

“If life is going to exist in a universe this size, the one thing it cannot afford to have is a sense of proportion.” —Douglas Adams, Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy In the Bayh-Dole era–1981 to the present–the US Patent … Continue reading →

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A century of reaping enormous profits at the expense of sickness and misfortune, 2

Posted on January 12, 2019 by Gerald Barnett

Mayo’s research publication Discovery’s Edge recently ran an article on “The Power of Patents.” In the article, Mayo Clinic wonders about patent royalties from a famous past invention: When Mayo Clinic colleagues Edward Kendall, Ph.D., and Philip Hench, M.D., along with … Continue reading →

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Hormones and Patents

Posted on January 3, 2019 by Gerald Barnett

Graham Dutfield at the University of Leeds has published an article on the development of medical hormone products and patent law, “Patent on Steroids: What Hormones Tell Us about the Evolution of Patent Law.” The article doesn’t do as much … Continue reading →

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NIST’s “substantially fueled” premise for unleashing innovation

Posted on December 14, 2018 by Gerald Barnett

Here is a claim from the opening of a recent NIST report–1234–on “Unleashing American Innovation,” a “draft green paper”: The U.S. innovation system is substantially fueled by the discoveries and inventions arising from federally funded R&D at the Nation’s universities, … Continue reading →

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The dogs in the manger, 2

Posted on July 6, 2018 by Gerald Barnett

We are working through some testimony from 1979 by a federal patent attorney, R. Tenney Johnson, before a Senate subcommittee considering a federal government invention policy bill that was a rival to Bayh-Dole (and strikingly similar, and didn’t pass). Johnson … Continue reading →

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Guide to Bayh-Dole by the Layers, 7

Posted on April 24, 2018 by Gerald Barnett

Eighth layer: Outcomes We reach the eighth and final layer of Bayh-Dole: outcomes. We can consider four elements of outcomes: activity, cost, practical application, and the effects of patent monopoly exclusion on research, rapid industry and professional uptake of research … Continue reading →

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Institutional patent derangement syndrome

Posted on April 3, 2018 by Gerald Barnett

The discussion of university ownership of patents on inventions made in faculty-led research invariably adopts the singular. Consider one invention at one university. Now, doesn’t it make sense that university administrators should take over that invention for the good of … Continue reading →

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“Only assholes get patents…”

Posted on February 26, 2018 by Gerald Barnett

Slashdot points to a recent blog post by Marco Arment on dealing with feature copying and imitation in software apps. Arment summaries copyright and trademark angles, noting that neither provides much defense. He then moves on to patents: Only assholes … Continue reading →

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Mississippi State University misrepresents Bayh-Dole

Posted on February 20, 2018 by Gerald Barnett

Here’s Mississippi State University’s Office Technology Management answering the question “Why does the University patent technology?” It is required under federal grants – The University is required to patent and commercialize the technology under terms of the Bayh-Dole Act. If the … Continue reading →

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Whistling all the way to the bank, revisited 3

Posted on February 14, 2018 by Gerald Barnett

Having established the contracting problem for government-sponsored “basic research,” let’s get into how the patent administration folks got into changing things around from government ownership to institutional ownership, when the institutions didn’t have policies and practices that swept up inventions … Continue reading →

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