Category Archives: Innovation

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

Posted on April 12, 2021 by Gerald Barnett

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

Posted on February 16, 2021 by Gerald Barnett

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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A sense of proportion–4

Posted on December 6, 2019 by Gerald Barnett

To lay it out in bullet points, the now dominant university patent-based approach to research inventions defaulting to exclusive licenses: fragments invention platforms with no way to restore them attracts speculative investors while pushing away companies raises barriers to early … Continue reading →

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Patents, Medicines, Public Funding–2

Posted on May 28, 2019 by Gerald Barnett

We have distinguished four sorts of medical interventions–prevention, cure, facilitation, and alleviation. We have also argued that from a public health point of view, prevention and cure are tops, and facilitation and alleviation are great when they support prevention and … Continue reading →

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Patents, Medicines, Public Funding–1

Posted on May 14, 2019 by Gerald Barnett

Let’s look at four areas of health “technology”: preventions, cures, facilitators, and alleviators. A prevention does just that–prevents an adverse health condition. A vaccine, for instance, prevents a disease (for many, and sometimes with adverse reactions, even deaths). Or, regular … Continue reading →

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Research Enterprise Policy Issues: fragmentation of noisy research

Posted on April 10, 2019 by Gerald Barnett

We have looked at noisy research and quiet research. Policy folks don’t much care, but it appears to make a difference whether research is conducted quietly or noisily. In quiet research, variations are explored, applications considered, data assembled, evidence checked … Continue reading →

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Research Enterprise Policy Issues: noisy work, quiet work

Posted on April 9, 2019 by Gerald Barnett

Let’s discuss practice around research, invention, and enterprise. Let’s start distinguish quiet work and noisy work. When someone is doing unprovoked research on their own–in the proverbial laboratory (institutional) or garage (unaffiliated, gadgeteer, entrepreneur), their work tends to be quiet. … Continue reading →

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Fantasy depictions of technology transfer, 3

Posted on March 13, 2019 by Gerald Barnett

Despite all this discussion of university fantasy depictions of a technology transfer process, their invocation of the Bayh-Dole Act as their justification, and the reality that actual practice is nowhere like their depictions of process, success, or history, there are … Continue reading →

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Fantasy depictions of technology transfer, 2

Posted on March 12, 2019 by Gerald Barnett

The standard accounts of the “technology transfer process” seem so clear and plausible that you may well believe they are generally accurate, even if there might be “technical details” that they gloss over. But these standard accounts are largely, almost … Continue reading →

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The new rule

Posted on January 29, 2019 by Gerald Barnett

I once created a game I called “Tradition.” I was trying to find games with simple rule sets. In Tradition, the only rule was you could make a rule or make a move. At the outset, then, the only move … Continue reading →

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