Category Archives: Policy

What’s uniform and what should never be, Part 5

If there’s no need for the federal government to make money from patent positions, and the federal government transfers the administration of these patents to universities, then universities also have no need to make money from these patent positions. They … Continue reading

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What’s uniform and what should never be, Part 4

[I have expanded the first section to fill out the difference between acquiring the federal government’s right of ownership in subject inventions and the federal government giving up on having an ownership interest in subject inventions–muddling this distinction is at … Continue reading

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What’s uniform and what should never be, Part 3

There are, then, three entry points for the IPA approach re-established by Norm Latker at HEW in 1968. First, an agency may allow a university to acquire rights at the time of contracting at the agency director’s discretion–if doing so is … Continue reading

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University Bayh-Dole Drug Price Gravy Licking

The financial sweet spot for drug development is to find compounds that make widely occurring acute conditions chronic. That’s a lifetime of payments following diagnosis. And really good for the twenty-year monopoly that permits pricing “whatever the market [for pain … Continue reading

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How can universities demonstrate they aren’t patent trolls?

Let’s say, just for the sake of argument, that university administrators at places like Caltech don’t want to be labelled patent trolls. What might make it clear that universities are not just one more set of patent trolls? “We’re not … Continue reading

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What we have lost

Before their efforts turned to Bayh-Dole, the folks advocating invention mining at universities aimed to make the IPA a standard across all government agencies. Yes, “uniform” policy was what they argued for, but that was the politics. What they wanted … Continue reading

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Use Bayh-Dole 35 USC 202(a)(ii) to deal with (future) drug prices

The Washington Monthly has a new article out by Alicia Mundy on high drug prices and Bayh-Dole. Mundy reports on efforts to use march-in procedures under Bayh-Dole to force lower the price of drugs that were developed with federal support. There’s substance … Continue reading

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Bayh-Dole and the Keys to the Gates of Heaven, Part 2

There are plenty of people who have not adopted the usual narrative regarding Bayh-Dole. They may not have heard of Bayh-Dole, and they might not know much about university research, other than that there sure seems to be a lot … Continue reading

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Behind the Usual Narrative, Part V

Universities Help to Make the Problem Universities created the federal contracting mess for basic research by insisting that the federal government not concentrate contracting authority in a single agency set up specifically for providing grants under the most liberal patent … Continue reading

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Ordinary and subject patent monopolies

Here’s a diagram that might help discussions of patent rights made with federal funding. A general monopoly A operates without any constraints of law, and in particular without regard for anti-trust law. Thus, such a monopolist may exercise ranging power, … Continue reading

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