Category Archives: Freedom

Simplify University Patent Policies

Close Encounters of the Third Kind begins with reports of strange doings from all over the world. Let’s start in a similar mode. In The Rational Optimist, Matt Ridley makes the case that the inventions of the industrial revolution were not … Continue reading

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How we got here in twelve chapters, 2

2. The equities University faculty develop an approach to patents—mostly, keep them out of the university, use Research Corporation or a local research foundation. Agents provide services, take on the costs and risks, and share upsides with inventors and institutions. … Continue reading

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How we got here in twelve chapters, 1

A few days ago I sat down to work on a curriculum for innovation and found myself distracted by the outline of a book-length treatment of the development of university “technology transfer.” I emerged a few hours later with a … Continue reading

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The Dag Wagging the Dog, Part 2

In Part 1 of “Dag Wagging Dog,” we looked again at Rev Proc 47-2007 and how university administrators have used this tax guidance to create an artificial barrier to industry-sponsored research. Now let’s turn to how the universities have used … Continue reading

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University claims on non-supported inventive work

In a note on the Guide to Bayh-Dole, a reader asks: One point I have been particularly concerned with is the position taken by virtually all of the universities that if a university employee is hired as a consultant to … Continue reading

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Lock-in and Value-add in University IP Management

John Gruber at Daring Fireball points out a new article by Dave Winer, the developer of the RSS feed. The article is about “lock-in”–the effort to capture users to a particular technology product (and its infrastructure) as a way to … Continue reading

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How University Capitalism Suppresses Business Opportunity

The Washington Business Alliance has just posted a discussion of the University of Washington’s Center for Commercialization. The WBA still presents C4C’s published information on startups as facts, but then offers some alternative, even contrarian, perspectives on the claims–something that no-one … Continue reading

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Tesla's Patent Move That Universities Must Also Make

Tesla Motors, the electric car manufacturer, has released all of its patents to its competitors. A search at the USPTO for patents and patent applications assigned to Tesla Motors returns 169 issued US patents and 231 published applications. No doubt … Continue reading

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Seeking that "Oh, Ass" Moment

The Oh, Ass Moment In The First Men in the Moon by H.G. Wells, the narrator, Bedford, a would-be businessman partnered with Cavor, an inventive genius with no social aspirations, finds himself in a bit of a pickle on the moon, … Continue reading

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Building Pillar One: Freedom To Innovate

Of the seven pillars of university new innovation practice, freedom to innovate is the most important. University policies on research and invention were at one time liberal. That is, faculty and students had the freedom to publish, experiment, discuss, collaborate, … Continue reading

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