Author Archives: Gerald Barnett

The Dumbest Possible Model

Posted on April 18, 2012 by Gerald Barnett

It’s hard to describe how devastating the Stanford v Roche decision is to autocracy-minded university bureaucrats.  They claimed Bayh-Dole requires university ownership. So they instituted policies that require university ownership, “to comply with Bayh-Dole”. Then they argued in Stanford v Roche … Continue reading →

Posted in Bayh-Dole, Bozonet, Commons, Policy, Present Assignment, Sponsored Research, Stanford v Roche, Technology Transfer | 1 Comment

How Bayh-Dole was used to expand university IP claims

Posted on April 16, 2012 by Gerald Barnett

I’ve put together a graphic that shows a cascade of possible places where a university and faculty might consider the matter of ownership of inventions and works of authorship. I’ve arranged things into various rows, each with a corresponding letter … Continue reading →

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A carefully crafted scheme

Posted on April 14, 2012 by Gerald Barnett

How should a federal government deal with ownership of inventions made at universities with federal support? Consider the situation that existed at the time the Bayh-Dole Act was being implemented.  Many universities did not have technology transfer offices of the … Continue reading →

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A present assignment wouldn’t have saved Stanford claim

Posted on April 13, 2012 by Gerald Barnett

Since the topic keeps coming up, let’s look again at Stanford v Roche.   The standard analysis is that the case teaches universities that they have to make their invention assignment agreements “tighter”.  The argument goes, in Stanford v Roche a … Continue reading →

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A serious flaw in a paper about a serious flaw in Bayh-Dole that isn’t a flaw

Posted on April 12, 2012 by Gerald Barnett

A recent paper argues that there’s a hole in Bayh-Dole’s treatment of assignments.  I thought that for a while, but then I went and read the law and the implementing regulations and realized that there was no hole. In Stanford … Continue reading →

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The Retrenchment Movement

Posted on April 12, 2012 by Gerald Barnett

The Stanford v. Roche case was about how universities get ownership of inventions under Bayh-Dole. Stanford argued vesting. The Solicitor General argued voiding all other alternatives. WARF argued faculty were gullible, inept, and selfish. AUTM threw sticks and dirt in … Continue reading →

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Penn State gets innovative

Posted on April 11, 2012 by Gerald Barnett

[updated 5/31/16 to repair/replace broken links; PSU has removed the committee report proposing the change in industry contracting requirements] Penn State has for years been one of the leaders in industry sponsored research.  In the past few months, they have … Continue reading →

Posted in Policy, Sponsored Research, Technology Transfer | 2 Comments

It’s a dead parrot, guys

Posted on April 11, 2012 by Gerald Barnett

Joe Allen, whom I respect a great deal for his work on Bayh-Dole, won’t give up after the ruling on Stanford v Roche.  He has published a piece that aims to undermine the arguments I made in a commentary published … Continue reading →

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Ten Ways to Avoid the License Contract

Posted on April 10, 2012 by Gerald Barnett

Judge Learned Hand: Anyone may arrange his affairs so that his taxes shall be as low as possible; he is not bound to choose that pattern which best pays the treasury. There is not even a patriotic duty to increase … Continue reading →

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Mozilla Public License 2.0

Posted on April 6, 2012 by Gerald Barnett

The April Roche & Associés newsletter has a discussion of the new Mozilla public license.  Changes work to coordinate the MPL with the various GPLs from the Free Software Foundation, make a clearer distinction between the management of source code … Continue reading →

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