Category Archives: Patents

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

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Stop being Moloch

Here is a short form of the argument that nothing is a better way than the approach to technology transfer, IP, licensing that universities have at present. The present approach universities take to IP management/technology transfer does not work, has … 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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The better way is no way: background rights, royalty stacking, and double licensing arising from university IP claims

Let’s start blunt. Then extended discussion. Snark as needed. Current university IP policies create a background rights problem that drives away collaborators, makes university-based inventions irrelevant, and makes university dealings with IP default to unreliable. One of the dark problems … Continue reading

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10 Ways Universities Deal in Patents

I have been thinking about how university technology transfer is depicted, versus how it actually happens. The depictions are something of a prophetic hope–inventions reported to the university’s licensing office will be evaluated for “commercial potential” and those that look … Continue reading

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Inventors would own more, were it not for noncompliant Bayh-Dole practice

I saw this tweet this morning: I agree Inventors should own more, but institutions were/are the heart of Bayh-Dole that (arguably) enables IP-driven startups… this is bc many/most PI inventions would go into a black hole without tech transfer officer … Continue reading

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Why not let’s try, Frank?

Frank Cullen, writing at the “Council for Innovation Promotion” has posted a hand-wringing response to a letter from members of Congress to the Secretary of Health and Human Services requesting that the government use Bayh-Dole’s march-in provisions to address price … Continue reading

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Cornboard, Part 2

Despite various announcements about possible products and manufacturing, Cornboard Manufacturing appears not to have manufactured much of anything by the time the Illinois patent expired in 2016. Although the company did not “disappear” like Illinois’s first exclusive licensee, it did … Continue reading

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Cornboard, Part 1

The Bayh-Dole Coalition, an evidence-free lobbying organization in support of not enforcing Bayh-Dole’s public protections, tweeted today a “success” story: Success Story! @UofIllinois 3 Researchers developed a product known as “CornBoard”, a way to make composite materials from corn to … Continue reading

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Mixing Two Governments’ Funding

Here’s an interesting statement of government rights in a University of Arizona patent, 9239453 B2. (I’d link to the USPTO patent server, but since the change in search software, it’s not obviously possible.): GOVERNMENT RIGHTS (1) This invention was made … Continue reading

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