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Author Archives: Gerald Barnett
Incommensurate Innovation Mindsets
Alasdair McIntyre in After Virtue presents two contrasting arguments. Shortened up and re-cast slightly, they are: (a) Justice demands that every citizen should enjoy equal opportunity to develop his or her talents. But that requires equal access to health care … Continue reading
Posted in Freedom, Innovation, Technology Transfer
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To be the lighthouse, not the reef
Judging from the tone of Chris Gallagher’s reporting on S. 1720 and S. 1310, the anti-troll bills working their way through the US Senate, university administrators are not paying much attention to the consequences. If these bills are combined and … Continue reading
Posted in Litigation, Technology Transfer
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The basic researcher as poet-maker
In 1953, the NSF in its third annual report publishes a discussion of basic research. In its opening paragraph, the NSF associates scientific creativity with that of “poet or painter”: A worker in basic scientific research is motivated by a … Continue reading
Posted in History, Innovation, Sponsored Research
Tagged Bacon, basic research, poet, Sidney
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Ten Reasons Why Deans and Provosts Should Support Freedom to Innovate
Freedom to innovate policies limit the manner in which universities and other non-profit organizations claim ownership of intellectual property developed in the research and instructional programs they host. These limitations, far from being adverse to institutional interests, promote a creative, … Continue reading
Posted in Freedom, Policy, Technology Transfer
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Adam Smith’s Innovation by Division of Labor
Daniel Kahneman in Thinking, Fast and Slow describes what he calls “What You See Is All There Is”: The combination of a coherence-seeking System 1 with a lazy System 2 implies that System 2 will endorse many intuitive beliefs, which … Continue reading
Posted in 3D Printing, History, Innovation, Policy
Tagged Adam Smith, division of labor, gadgeteer, Kahneman, tinkerer, warfarin
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Misunderstandings of Bayh-Dole
Sean O’Connor has written a well documented and argued article regarding the history of the Bayh-Dole Act and what he argues is a flaw in government reasoning regarding assignment practices for inventions that arises from a report written in 1947 … Continue reading
Posted in Bayh-Dole, Policy, Stanford v Roche, Technology Transfer
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Is more and more research spending the answer?
Battelle is out with a new study forecasting “Global R&D Funding” for 2014. The report covers countries and various areas of research such as biotech and energy. The findings are rather bland–the US will spend $465 billion next year on … Continue reading
Posted in Innovation, Metrics, Policy, Sponsored Research, Technology Transfer
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The Woody Guthrie Public License
Kevin Carson wrote a book a few years ago called Organizational Theory: A Libertarian Perspective. In it, he develops a number of concepts that ought to be central to university thinking about research and innovation. Carson picks up on Ronald Coase‘s question–if … Continue reading
Posted in Commons, Freedom, Innovation, Policy
Tagged closed control, fascists bound lose, Kevin Carson, open labs, public license, Woody Guthrie
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It's *Not* Just a Tax, You Know
It’s Just a Tax I have always wondered where the dismissive argument that non-exclusive licenses are “just a tax” came from. The expression comes up a couple of times in Sally Smith Hughes’s interviews with Niels Reimers, who ran Stanford’s … Continue reading
Posted in Bayh-Dole, Commons, Technology Transfer
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On making (Seeking Money = Public Service) federal research policy
Here is a paper from 2006 (actually, it looks like a near-final draft) by Fiona Murray on the OncoMouse licensing problem. At the time, the OncoMouse was one of the big issues for university tech transfer offices. The paper is a great … Continue reading
Posted in Agreements, Bayh-Dole, Commons, Technology Transfer
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