Category Archives: Policy

Ten Years After 25 Years After Bayh-Dole, Part 2

We are working through an article by Boettiger and Bennett that looks back on Bayh-Dole and wishes things were different in some ways. The actual thrust of the article, though, is about university patent practice. To get there, however, we … Continue reading

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After the parade

Sometimes I feel like my job is to come along after the parade and sweep up all the horse-manure left by AUTM folks. Crowds are gone, balloons all popped, marching bands safe back in their hotel rooms. University inventions locked … Continue reading

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Bayh-Dole all but mandates Government practice of subject inventions

The Bayh-Dole Act requires contractors retaining ownership of subject inventions to grant a non-exclusive license to the government. Commonly–and very wrongly–this license is depicted as a requirement that commercial vendors sell product based on subject inventions to the government “royalty-free”–meaning … Continue reading

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Federal patent policy for the 21st Century, Part 3

What’s funny (funny “strange” not funny “funny”) is that universities could implement the core of this version of the law themselves, right now, no politics necessary. Yes, there is still all the wasted paperwork to throw around under the current … Continue reading

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Federal patent policy for the 21st Century, Part 2

In Part 1, I proposed a new law governing federal patent policy for public interest research conducted at universities–research to advance science and technology, or to address matters of public welfare. That new law carried with it public covenants that … Continue reading

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Federal patent policy for the 21st Century, Part 1

How about a new Dole/Bayh Act? Of course, it will have different names attached to it. How about a law that tracks what Vannevar Bush recommended for scientific frontiers, nearly 75 years ago, in Science the Endless Frontier? One that puts inventors first. … Continue reading

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Evidence-based federal research patent policy

The Commission on Evidence-Based Policymaking is holding a public hearing in Chicago in January for “any interested stakeholders” to provide input. Given that the commission’s statutory mandate is more toward database access and security, I’m not sure that the lack … Continue reading

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The Dole/Bayh Bill and Commercialization Rates

In 1983 Senator Bob Dole wrote a letter to Senator Charles Mathias, Jr. regarding a bill Sen. Dole intended to introduce to extend the “Dole/Bayh bill” (as Sen. Dole called it) to large businesses. I rather like the construction Dole/Bayh. Perhaps we … Continue reading

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Bayh-Dole has dropped commercialization rates from 25% to 0.5%: what more can we expect?

University licensing programs appear to have about a 0.5% commercialization rate. That is, of all the assets reported to them which they claim, only 1 in 200 (or less) actually results in a commercial product (without regard to the “success” … Continue reading

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Documented and undocumented technology transfer programs

Recently, the University of California, in an internal report on its technology transfer program, indicated that its commercialization rate was 0.5%–1 invention in 200 got to the point of a commercial product. There was no indication whether those commercial products … Continue reading

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