Category Archives: Bad Science

Research administrators protest indirect cost changes

Posted on March 10, 2025 by Gerald Barnett

The NIH has proposed to set the indirect cost rate for its grants at 15%. There’s the usual outrage. I don’t feel that outrage, however. I don’t even feel a desire to preserve the present approach to federally supported research. … Continue reading →

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Government Funding For Research, 1

Posted on March 30, 2023 by Gerald Barnett

Out in Twitterland, I saw this tweet by Brett Blackham: Arguably, research and development is so important that government should have nothing to do with it. However since 1980 a company or university could get government money to do research … Continue reading →

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Federal agency patent enforcement under Bayh-Dole, 6

Posted on June 11, 2020 by Gerald Barnett

Bayh-Dole devotes two sections to federal disposition of patents, 35 USC 207 and 209. These sections are then codified at 37 CFR 404. There, the regulations limit the scope of Bayh-Dole (37 CFR 404.2): It is the policy and objective … Continue reading →

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Illusions of Bayh-Dole: the bathos of university practice, 2

Posted on January 22, 2018 by Gerald Barnett

We are working through a report on a workshop discussion of the “manufactured substantially” provision in Bayh-Dole (35 USC 204). Now we get to a rich part of Schwartz’s discussion, actual university practice: Because Johns Hopkins has applied for and … Continue reading →

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Vice presidents for research beg for Directive 10-289.

Posted on June 12, 2017 by Gerald Barnett

Here’s a bit from the APLU/AAU fakographic on university technology transfer: And here’s a bit from “‘Miracle machine of U.S. innovation is in danger,” a new op/ed by Kelvin Droegemeier and Daniel Reed. Droegemeier is the vice president for research at … Continue reading →

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The IPA and Wisconsin’s 1969 Patent Policy, 10

Posted on May 24, 2017 by Gerald Barnett

This series starts here: The IPA and Wisconsin’s 1969 Patent Policy, 1 Medicinal chemistry drives the whole of federal patent policy The IPA program, revived in 1968 by the NIH following the Harbridge House report, which singled out medicinal chemistry … Continue reading →

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Boiling away “Why Bayh-Dole”

Posted on December 16, 2016 by Gerald Barnett

The basis of the patent system is individual inventor rights. Bayh-Dole strips these in favor of institutional exploitation. Bayh-Dole is inventor loathing. The results are terrible. Commercialization rates are 1/1oth what they were before Bayh-Dole. Bayh-Dole has created tens of … Continue reading →

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Saving Bush

Posted on September 25, 2016 by Gerald Barnett

Over at the Science of Science Policy discussion group, there was a brief flurry regarding Dan Sarewitz’s article in The New Atlantis, “Saving Science.” Here is what I posted in that discussion: Militaristic research directors demanding disciplined obedience don’t appear … Continue reading →

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Vannevar Bush’s seductive lie

Posted on August 26, 2016 by Gerald Barnett

At The New Atlantis, Dan Sarewitz has published an interesting article, “Saving Science.” While there’s plenty to discuss regarding his major theme, that scientists “must come out of the lab into the real world,” here I’d like to deal with a … Continue reading →

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Look, It's a Thrush!

Posted on April 6, 2016 by Gerald Barnett

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 →

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