Author Archives: Gerald Barnett

Invention, subject invention, and the clever scheme of Bayh-Dole

Here is the definition of invention in the Kennedy executive branch patent policy, 1963 (Section 4(b)): Invention or Invention or discovery–includes any art, machine, manufacture, design, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, or any variety … Continue reading

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Nonsense about Bayh-Dole from Bio, 2018 edition–2

We are working through the 2018 version of Bio’s misinfographic about Bayh-Dole and its relationship to drug prices. Bio report metrics from an AUTM report as if they are facts. But these are not facts–they are estimates from an unvalidated … Continue reading

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Nonsense about Bayh-Dole from Bio, 2018 edition–1

Let’s look at a new infographic from Bio about Bayh-Dole. It’s largely the same as the old infographics. The point of the infographic is to create the impression that the Bayh-Dole Act has been wildly successful and that any effort … Continue reading

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IP Laws for Dragons

On Quora, I was asked to answer this question: Do US intellectual property laws stills serve society or just corporations and countries that are large and rich? Historically, patents have been the domain of countries (and city states) and the … Continue reading

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Two Published Accounts of University Licensing: WARF and Stanford

Universities generally keep secret their licensing metrics. Yes, they report the number of inventions, patents, licenses, and startups in a given year–but they don’t report how those numbers relate to one another. The inventions reported in a given year have … Continue reading

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WARF, Vitamin D, and the Public Interest, 3

The appeals court in Vitamin Technologists sets up the case for compulsory licensing of inventions owned by public universities as instruments of state governments. That is, the appeals court establishes the basis for public march-in when a state owns a … Continue reading

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WARF, Vitamin D, and the Public Interest, 2

We have worked through a 1945 appeals court reasoning about the University of Wisconsin’s president’s refusal to allow the licensing of an invention beneficial to public health for use in food products that might compete with State of Wisconsin dairy … Continue reading

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WARF, Vitamin D, and the Public Interest, 1

In the 1940s, WARF was basking in the income from licensing its flagship patents–on a way to irradiate food products to produce in them vitamin D. (For an interesting account with lots of details, see Rima D. Apple, a University … Continue reading

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Shaping Science

A short version of a Research Enterprise article on Daniel Sarewitz’s “Saving Science” is posted as correspondence at The New Atlantis, where Sarewitz also responds to various comments on his paper. In part, Sarewitz gathers some of those comments into … Continue reading

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The monopoly meme, 5

Now let’s turn to the Bayh-Dole Act and see how it works with the monopoly meme. Short form, if you don’t want to bother, is that Bayh-Dole doesn’t follow the monopoly meme in its gestures, but because these gestures never … Continue reading

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