“Finding 3: The system put in place by the Bayh-Dole Act, that is,
university ownership of inventions from publicly funded research and
latitude in exercising associated IP rights subject to certain conditions
and limitations, is unquestionably more effective than its predecessor
system—government ownership subject to waiver in circumstances that
varied from agency to agency—in making research advances available
to the public.”
This is a finding? More effective in making research available to the public than something 30 years ago that government was doing rather than something 30 years ago that faculty inventors were doing? Oh, it doesn’t matter, it’s just better. Unquestionably. No one has any questions about it. Certainly not on the committee. The assertion is, more of the same is better even though we don’t know what the same is, or why it is better, or better than what.
The *system* put in place by Bayh-Dole normalizes a contracting interface between universities and agencies for dealing with patent rights. The *system* put in place by universities, in response, to deal with their own innovative research talent is Blighted Dullness, a monoculture of accumulating patent rights, making a show of licensing, treating inventors as commodity labor, and claiming success from a few lucrative licenses disingenuously allowed to stand for outcomes of the overall effort.
But oh, it is not worth pointing this out. How many government agencies in that deep unquestionably worser past *trolled* industry with their patent positions? Ah, yes, that’s *really so much better* in making things available.
Technology transfer is about patent licensing in Finding 1, but by Finding 3 it’s about making technology “available”. Like the public domain doesn’t do that. Like maybe the government was *more selective* about what to patent. Like maybe technology transfer is about something more than “availability”. No, something is wrong here.
Is it so terribly difficult to get clear that the issue is not availability, but the nature of that availability? A patent is an exclusionary right. It can be used to create a monopoly position. University commercialization folks are fixated on this. “Anything else is just a tax.” Right. Sure. An unlicensed patent is also a monopoly position. Universities have *tons* of unlicensed patents. How are those monopoly positions making technology “available” to the public. No, it is not the case. They are not. They are withholding technology from the public. But the report doesn’t care.
The first challenge in university technology transfer is to *license everything one claims*. The second challenge is in the license to do something that advances *technology yet to be created*. In commercialization, this is a *product*. In ventures, it is a new company. In commons, it is an opportunity or a platform or standard. But it’s all the same. It doesn’t matter in the report. t’s just better than it was, and that’s so very true if you don’t know anything about the past except a couple of assertions in the academic literature, and you don’t care which past you are comparing things with, and you don’t care whether the present is matched to what is possible.
Live for the present. Believe it’s the best thing that is possible. Or, perhaps, the sad thing is, given the people holding the status quo in place, *there is no hope to do anything better*. Unquestionably.