Search the RE article base
Contact Information
Twitter
My TweetsUseful Web Sites
Category Archives: History
The Entrepreunial Research University
Three narratives have come together to support the transformation of American university innovation policy from one of diversity and institutional support to one of monopoly institutional control of research inventions, heralded as the best thing for the country. All the … Continue reading
Posted in Bayh-Dole, History, Metrics, Policy, Technology Transfer, Vannever Bush
Tagged Atkinson, Bayh-Dole, entrepreneurial university, Godin, linear model, Science the Endless Frontier, Vannevar Bush
Comments Off on The Entrepreunial Research University
A vaccine for university invention borreliosis
Equity in an invention arises in a number of ways under the university patent policies of the pre-Bayh-Dole misconstruction. Generally, the premise of equity has to do with support beyond the normal activities and salary of the work, unless someone … Continue reading
Posted in Bayh-Dole, History, Policy, Sponsored Research, Technology Transfer
Comments Off on A vaccine for university invention borreliosis
Well, if you don’t like these five things, I’ve got others.
Innovation Daily has just published “Five Things Technology Transfer Offices Wish Their Start-ups Knew.” This appears to be based on a presentation the author made at the last AUTM meeting. Perhaps that’s why the piece argues that university IP offices … Continue reading
Posted in History, Innovation, IP, Policy, Technology Transfer
Tagged comitatus, IP, protection, startup, technology transfer
Comments Off on Well, if you don’t like these five things, I’ve got others.
Equity Policies and Ownership Policies, Part I
In 1962, the dominant concept addressed in university patent policies was that of “equity” in inventions. By 2012, fifty years later, equity has largely vanished from these policies, replaced by “ownership.” In 1962 most universities did not have a patent … Continue reading
Hope of Better Things
Vannevar Bush (1949) [emphasis added]: The real reason we made such great progress was not bright inventors or clever gadgets. It was the fact that we had thousands of men who understood the underlying science in the field, who skillfully … Continue reading
Posted in History, Innovation, Literature, Policy
Tagged Science the Endless Frontier, Vannevar Bush
1 Comment
Patent Policies of Confidence, and Patent Policies of Fear
Vannevar Bush, writing in the introduction to Modern Arms and Free Men (1949): This is not a history of what science did in the war; that has already been written. It is an attempt to explore its meaning in the … Continue reading
Posted in Freedom, History, Innovation, Policy
1 Comment
The long, slow 180 degree turn
I have spent the past few weeks working through 130 patent policies at US universities, circa 1962. I have compiled a set of notes that runs to 100 pages, and another set of notes that are notes on the notes–2nd … Continue reading
Posted in History, Policy, Technology Transfer
Comments Off on The long, slow 180 degree turn
University patent policies then and now
Some patent policies in effect in 1962, with the date of most recent revision. From the preamble to the New Mexico State University research and patent policy, 1960: Discoveries and inventions which appear as a natural product of original work … Continue reading
Administrative patent policy swarming
I have been intrigued by a story David Byrne tells in How Music Works. Byrne needed three dancers as part of an ensemble, so they held an audition that had fifty dancers. The choreographer had the dancers do an exercise … Continue reading
The non-patenting of the first digital computer
In Turing’s Cathedral, George Dyson provides an account of the creation of the first digital computer at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton. John von Neumann, leading the effort, in 1946 came up with a patent policy for the … Continue reading
Posted in Commons, History, IP, Policy, Technology Transfer
Comments Off on The non-patenting of the first digital computer