Category Archives: Freedom

If Siri were free of rights, would there be a Siri?

Posted on October 8, 2012 by Gerald Barnett

Here is another article out today, from Peter Cohan, arguing that the US patent system should be scrapped.  Are we are well past being able to reform it?  Cohan’s five reasons don’t include regulatory capture, market inefficiencies, the march to … Continue reading →

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On Deliberately Weak IP Rhetorics

Posted on October 7, 2012 by Gerald Barnett

I mentioned Boldrin and Levine’s argument against patents.  Their paper (it is posted but labeled a draft) is very uneven, moving between dubious assertions and insightful analysis.  Lurking over their discussion, though they do not acknowledge it, is Teece’s paper … Continue reading →

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Cleese on Creativity

Posted on September 25, 2012 by Gerald Barnett

In a talk on Creativity (from 1991, it seems), complete with Danish subtitling to help expand your language competency, John Cleese talks about “open” and “closed” modes of operating, and the need to move between these two modes to find … Continue reading →

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Recovering Agent Choice

Posted on September 24, 2012 by Gerald Barnett

Having looked at the various topics Research Enterprise has covered over the past four years, it’s also good to look at where we are in terms of university innovation management. Prior to Bayh-Dole’s passage in 1980, university innovation practice was … Continue reading →

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Bayh-Dole, the Invention Management Free-Agency Law

Posted on September 10, 2012 by Gerald Barnett

I came across an email from November 2009 that rather lays out the heart of the public debate around free agency.  It’s from Joe Allen to Robert Hardy (at COGR) and Howard Bremer (long time at WARF).   Robert Hardy has sent … Continue reading →

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Dealing with TLO Food Bowl Aggression

Posted on August 9, 2012 by Gerald Barnett

I came across a paper in PLoS that discusses Global Access Licensing.  The point of the paper is to lay out GAL Framework principles and appeal to university licensing offices to implement them.  The authors point out that Bayh-Dole allows … Continue reading →

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Freedom to Innovate

Posted on August 6, 2012 by Gerald Barnett

When the discussion of “free agency” comes up in technology transfer, it is easy to get diverted into rather narrow formulations.   In previous essays, I’ve pointed out that inventor ownership is the default in US patent law, and it takes … Continue reading →

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Release the Bugaboos!

Posted on August 1, 2012 by Gerald Barnett

Let’s put some context around the idea of “free agency.”  AUTM clearly hates it, and so do Scott Shane and Joe Allan.  But what is it, exactly, that they hate?  I cannot get into their minds–and of course, it’s clear … Continue reading →

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