Search the RE article base
Contact Information
Twitter
My TweetsUseful Web Sites
Category Archives: History
End the disaster of university patenting for exclusive licensing
While there is a place for exclusive patent licensing (but why not just assign?), the university screws over its public mission by involving itself in exclusive deals. Just because those deals aren’t obvious to the public unless they make big … Continue reading
Dubilier, university IP policy and, er, inner life
Dubilier set in motion a cascade of things that leads us to, well, to where we are. In Dubilier, the Supreme Court established that inventors own their inventions unless they agree otherwise, even if they are employees, and even if … Continue reading
Posted in Freedom, History, Innovation, Policy
Tagged Dubilier, employment, patent policy
Comments Off on Dubilier, university IP policy and, er, inner life
Better than drinking oneself silly
In my last article, I argued that “the better way is no way.” Sounds sort of zen-like, no? That is, universities would do a better job of technology transfer if they started by getting out of the claim-everything-own-everything-patent-everything-try-to-license-exclusively-or-not-at-all-for-one-big-hit-in-2000-inventions business. Or, … Continue reading
Posted in History, Technology Transfer
Tagged better way, drinking, technology transfer
Comments Off on Better than drinking oneself silly
More on Feynman’s Patents
Back in 2013, I wrote a stubby post to create a link to audio of an interview with physicist Richard P. Feynman, in which he describes how he came to be named as inventor on U.S. patents. Since that post … Continue reading
Lessons from The Sound of Innovation: Lesson 1, On the Border
In The Sound of Innovation: Stanford and the Computer Music Revolution, Andrew J. Nelson recounts how John Chowning and others developed digital music while working in between the cracks of computer science, music, and electrical engineering. Nelson emphasizes this situation … Continue reading
Posted in History, Innovation, Technology Transfer
Tagged Chowning, edge of chaos, fringe, technology transfer
Comments Off on Lessons from The Sound of Innovation: Lesson 1, On the Border
Five Steps to Restoring an Effective University IP Practice, Step 4
We are working through five steps to getting a university back to an effective IP practice, a practice aligned with academic values and focused on actual technology transfer. The idea of “technology transfer” is bureaucratic in origin. As a concept … Continue reading
Posted in History, Policy, Sponsored Research
Tagged royalty schedule, SBIR, sponsored research, technology transfer
Comments Off on Five Steps to Restoring an Effective University IP Practice, Step 4
Latkerstein’s Monster, 2
The monopoly meme argument is that no one would have ever received any cisplatin if not for an exclusive license to motivate a big drug company to “develop” the drug as a product. Left out is the idea that the … Continue reading
Latkerstein’s Monster, 1
I ran a Twitter thread on this topic. Here’s more of the same. The Bayh-Dole Coalition describes Bayh-Dole as part of a “delicate balance of the university techtransfer system.” My experience differs. There is no “delicate balance.” Bayh-Dole is a … Continue reading
How they screwed over Senator Long and inventors after Bayh-Dole
The miracle of Bayh-Dole came about, so the story is told, because Senator Long, the arch-critic of Bayh-Dole (“the worst bill I’ve seen in my life”), suddenly flipped his position to give Senator Bayh a consolation gift for losing his … Continue reading
The use of the patent system for federal research results, 13: The failed middle ground
We’ve looked at the early Federal Security Administration policy on inventions made in federally contracted work–FSA order 110-1, issued in 1952. The government’s policy as set forth in David Lloyd Kreeger’s report for the Attorney General in 1947 was that … Continue reading
Posted in Bayh-Dole, History, Policy, Vannever Bush
Tagged 110, FSA, middle ground, Vannevar Bush
Comments Off on The use of the patent system for federal research results, 13: The failed middle ground