Category Archives: Innovation

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

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Contemptuous Invention Claims

Let’s start with the Dubilier decision. In 1933, the U.S. Supreme Court determined that two federal employees, working within the area of expertise for which they were employed, using the employer’s time and resources, still owned the inventions they made … Continue reading

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Espresso Granola

Okay. I have been making granola for dunno over five years. Here’s my once uber-non-public recipe. Combine the Goop Mess and Espresso with the Dry Mix. Bake, stir, and cool. Easy. Expectable IP comment to follow.

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Why I stepped away, and why I am back

I’ve been asked where I’ve been for the past year, and to brief about it, I decided to step away from writing and focus on other things, such as working with companies. I also felt that I had had enough … Continue reading

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Government Funding For Research, 1

Out in Twitterland, I saw this tweet by Brett Blackham: Arguably, research and development is so important that government should have nothing to do with it. However since 1980 a company or university could get government money to do research … Continue reading

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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

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The use of the patent system for federal research results, 3: FSA 110-1 and public interest

Federal policy on inventions made in federally supported research starts in a big way with Federal Security Agency Order 110-1, dated December 30, 1952. Norman Latker, patent counsel for the NIH, in 1978 testimony before Senator Nelson’s subcommittee, identified Order … Continue reading

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Goodyear and use of a gateway patent to control a big Invention

In Medical Monopoly Joseph Gabriel describes how Charles Goodyear used patents to lock out competitors from using his process for “vulcanizing” rubber without a license. We will use Gabriel’s account to consider alternatives to the prevailing university narrative about how … Continue reading

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The Faculty Stack, 3: Linking Federal Resources with Free Play

We are working through the idea that faculty independence is an important element in the justification to push federal funding for research activities to universities. For Vannevar Bush, the idea was that the frontiers of science were best explored by … Continue reading

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An odd statement of government interest in a Navy “UFO” patent

Here’s US patent 10322827. One of the “UFO” patents. It’s interesting physics, if not controversial, for being innovative in an institutional world that has made innovation mostly boring. But we are concerned with something else here.

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