Finding 5: A persuasive case has not been made for converting to an inventor ownership or “free agency” system in which inventors are able to dispose their inventions without university administration approval.
Well, here the report gets down to beating up the straw man. Scarecrow cries out. First, the report reveals itself as the arbiter of cases. The universities have made a case, and others haven’t. Well, how are those cases made? Did the committee take testimony? Did it commission studies of various alternatives? Or did it just do a clustergutcheck?
Who has made a case for inventor ownership? Note, Bayh-Dole permits it. So how can Bayh-Dole be unquestionably better, good enough not to serious undermine faculty promotion, and still not make a case for inventor ownership? Oh, we don’t want *that* part of Bayh-Dole to ever operate. That’s the point of the report.
Put these proposals on the board: universities have implemented narrowly under Bayh-Dole. They try to run general purpose patent licensing shops and after 30 years, it is painfully obvious they are not much different than the government was. They have few specialties. Biotech maybe. Oh, that’s *all* Bayh-Dole is really about, is it? Proposal: expand the range of agents available to do specialty work. Note: not *replace*.
It’s naive beyond naive to argue that one narrow system is wonderful, and it would be bad to replace it with another approach. Or, perhaps these folks aren’t naive. They are being political. And the politics is to suck up to the status quo. Well, neat.
And why is it that faculty shouldn’t have some say in how their research deploys? Why should a university administration approve such things? Where is that in a big imaginative approach to research innovation? Oh, yes, why, all good things should pass through a bunch of bureaucrats! Yes, yes, yes. The public cries out for bureaucrats to touch every research thing.
No, the problem is the commons. The thing people have raised is enclosure where a university administration is willing to take money for anything. Or that faculty inventors would do this. Bayh-Dole says, protect the public from non-use and unreasonable use, and don’t let patents get in the way of more discovery. That’s the role for bureaucrats–something they are good at–keep separation between commercial interests and public service, even where creating commercial interest is a public service–it isn’t necessarily a good thing for a university to do directly. Keep integrity and compassion in treating patients, not using them as test subjects for a commercial deal. Challenge the status quo, foster the loyal opposition, give the public straight poop not more marketing hype. No one is saying, though, let the bureaucrats take over, that’s the unquestionably better route to innovation. Er, no, the report is making that case.
A report like this has to be a speaker for those without voice. It is not merely an arbiter of academic this and that. It has to consider prospects whether they are trendy or not, anticipate needs and desires and opportunities, and show how the status quo is a choice among others, just as different countries are pursuing different variations on the theme.
But then, perhaps a report like this is intent on being a voice for the status quo, a restatement that everything is just fine. The economy is in the dumps, the US is losing its leadership positions in technology (remember the Gathering Storm report?), open innovation and grand challenges are sweeping the land, and the only constant in all this is a crummy process-laden patent accumulation program run by bureaucrats that hasn’t changed in 30 years. Fascinating.