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Category Archives: Freedom
The Rat in Bayh-Dole’s Rotten Pickle Barrel: 35 USC 202(c)(5)
Most of the Bayh-Dole pundits out there in the university patent and license world have never understood Bayh-Dole. I’m not sure all that many have read the statute. Certainly if they did so, they read without comprehension. Take this recent … Continue reading
Thanksgiving 2017
To all those who seek to discover, invent, collect, develop, create, author, realize, and do something with any of that–thank you for your efforts, your insights, your inspiration. For those who build administrative systems to support such work–thank you, too. … Continue reading
Posted in Freedom, Uncategorized
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Continued Employment as Consideration
Here is a nice article that worries whether continued employment is sufficient to create an enforceable obligation to assign inventions to an employer: “Is Continued Employment Enough to Uphold Invention Assignment Agreements?” The brief answer is, yes. Add the qualifications: … Continue reading
Posted in Freedom, Innovation
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Drift as a city’s economic driver
Some years ago, Jane Jacobs published a series of books that take up the issue of how cities contribute to regional and national economies. In particular, Jacobs argued that a particular kind of city behavior was crucial for a regional … Continue reading
Posted in Freedom, History, Innovation, Shanzhai
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University of Misery’s IP Policy Scam, 4
Let’s look next at academic freedom in the University of Missouri’s Collected Rules and Regulations, 310.010, “Academic Freedom and Economic Security of Academic Staff.” Academic freedom and tenure are placed in a single policy statement. We start with a statement … Continue reading
University of Misery’s IP Policy Scam, 3
But there’s more, of course. Under University of Missouri policy, faculty are not ordinary employees. The Collected Rules and Regulations call out faculty for special treatment. Here’s a concise statement of this fact from a policy on an employee’s ability … Continue reading
The laboratory and discovery
It’s a nice thought that faculty and students make their discoveries “in the lab” as a recent APLU infographic depicts. There certainly are discoveries made in laboratory work. But discoveries are also made out collecting samples, and in work shops, … Continue reading
Posted in Freedom, Innovation, Policy
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Discovery and Discovery Management, 2
University administrators, too, have oriented their institutions to take advantage of federal funding. Somehow, federal funding increases (to the administrative mind) a university’s prestige, and that prestige then can support raising tuition or getting more funding from state sources and … Continue reading
Posted in Freedom, Social Science, Sponsored Research, Technology Transfer
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Discovery and Discovery Management, 1
How do we discover? That’s a question that keeps coming up in my mind. There are books around that work at this point–to point to some recent examples, Ashton’s How to Fly a Horse, Kauffman’s Investigations, Johnson’s Where Good Ideas … Continue reading
Posted in Freedom, Policy, Social Science, Sponsored Research, Technology Transfer
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Penn State’s Protection Racket, 22: Agency
For all the talk about conflict of interest in Penn State policies, Penn State does have a policy, HR91, that directly addresses conflict of interest. It’s odd that administrators can’t seem to focus their conflict of interest worries there and … Continue reading
Posted in Freedom, Policy, Technology Transfer
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