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Author Archives: Gerald Barnett
Compel them to come in
The Christian religion became political when Constantine decriminalized Christianity (313) and Theodorus later made it the state religion (380). At that point, the ad hoc development of beliefs and founding texts became a matter of official business–the norming myths required … Continue reading
Posted in Freedom, History, Policy, Social Science
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Dealing with Norming Myths
There’s a new study out at Future Internet that looks at how Wikipedia’s norms have developed over the years. In “The Evolution of Wikipedia’s Norm Network,” Bradi Heaberlin and Simon DeDeo examine Wikipedia’s form of governance and find it to … Continue reading
Academic freedom, autonomy, and patrons
Paul Feyerabend, in the next to last essay of Farewell To Reason, responds to some of his critics, who state that they “believe in the autonomy of art, thought, and feeling over money.” Feyerabend is characteristically incisive in his reply. … Continue reading
Was Bayh-Dole based on a misconception?
In an article published in 2013, Sean O’Connor argues that Bayh-Dole is the descendant of what he calls “the Biddle Report,” produced in 1947 by Assistant Attorney General John F. Sonnett (with final editing done by David Lloyd Kreeger) in … Continue reading
Posted in Bayh-Dole, History, Policy, Sponsored Research, Stanford v Roche
Tagged Biddle, government contract, invention, patent, university policy
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NASA Turns Bayh-Dole Into a Vesting Statute
The US Supreme Court in Stanford v Roche ruled that Bayh-Dole was not a “vesting statute”–the law did not place ownership of patentable inventions made with federal support with the universities that hosted the research: Stanford contends that reading the … Continue reading
Posted in Bayh-Dole, Policy, Present Assignment, Stanford v Roche
Tagged Bayh-Dole, FAR, NASA, Stanford v Roche, subject invention
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The path from Bayh-Dole to inventors
Bayh-Dole is a law of federal contracting for inventions. Let’s work through it, again. 1) Bayh-Dole applies to federal agencies, not to universities. When university administrators say that “Bayh-Dole requires universities to commercialize inventions made with federal funding,” they are twice wrong. First, … Continue reading
Posted in Agreements, Bayh-Dole
Tagged (f)(2), 2 CFR 200, Bayh-Dole, flow down, standard patent rights clause
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The Mindset That Promotes Servile Relationships
In my last article, I cited claims from an article that insists that faculty are employees, employees have a duty of fidelity to their employers, fidelity sounds like fiduciary, so faculty have a fiduciary duty to their universities and therefore … Continue reading
Posted in Agreements, Policy
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Look, It's a Thrush!
One of the biggest problems in dealing with university technology transfer is the propensity for people to reason from the names given to things, rather than what the things are. In biology, a truism is that one cannot reason from … Continue reading
Posted in Bad Science, Bayh-Dole, Freedom, Policy
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3 Reasonable Approaches to University IP Policy
There are three relatively well-formed ways that a university might acquire rights to inventions made by faculty. Let’s review, starting with the clearest and simplest. Donation An inventor donates an invention to the university and the university agrees to accept … Continue reading
The Casino Factor
We have been working through how a university might come to acquire patent rights from its faculty. I’ve discussed the problems in the dual monopoly system–comprehensive, compulsory assignment of a broad set of things labeled “inventions” combined with a strong … Continue reading
Posted in Policy, Social Science, Technology Transfer
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