Who matters in university invention management?
I suggest these are: 1) the investigators–it is *their* research in university settings; 2) the inventors–they invent within the context of the investigators’ research–they should have standing within this context; 3) the community–these folk, looking for cures, imaginative boost, competitive advantage, safety, efficiency, health, happiness, digital watches–the research agenda, from F. Bacon to V. Bush, is about the community, so engage it; 4) industry–this is an engine to serve community, and it is part of community, and it is a fictionalized alternative community of “incorporated” (em-bodied) “persons”–and it needs to be both consulted and challenged, supported and extended.
I don’t see where university administrators come into it. I don’t see why they are out taking public positions without checking with one or more of these groups of folks that matter. If research inventors want their universities to take title to inventions, well, then, let them say that. And for those that don’t, why should they be constrained to do so anyway? There may be good reasons. I just haven’t heard any from administrators.
The same is true for investors. Folks with capital. Good for them. We are all mortal. But research enterprise is not just about how to make them more money for the money they have in the hope they share some with us. Investable market opportunities are not the dominant evaluation of university research practice or results. Neither are gap funds, to make up for the shortcomings of investors. Markets are one condition of community, but are not the only way community develops. Innovation comes about as communities develop. Transformational innovation–the stuff that shakes value chains and disrupts operating models and antagonizes baskets with fruit–isn’t just about bringing new things to old markets. It’s also about changing the condition of markets, and it is also about displacing the concepts and practices of market with other social conventions by which we establish things of value that shape our lives.
We might ask, not “is there a market for this invention?” but rather whether that is a meaningful question. The AUTM crowd no doubt will play the chorus and answer in unison, “But that’s the only question that matters for Bayh-Dole!” I say, it’s not. I say, it’s: “should what we have discovered be taught to others, and is it important enough that we should also help others implement what we know how to do?” Bayh-Dole says: if it would help you do that, use the patent system. Within all this, if the patent system provides access to investment and company partners and markets, and that helps you help others implement, then fine. But it’s down the road a ways. Jumping to it as the first thing, the only thing, and suppressing all the rest as fluffy afterthoughts and outliers is no way to implement.
There have got to be better ways to go about this. There are better ways. Time to revisit Bayh-Dole. More especially, time to take a hard look at university implementations of their role under Bayh-Dole.