Category Archives: Policy

University Patent Practice: Flip

Here are five ways to use a patent: Nonuse     Don’t practice the claimed invention and exclude all others Troll          Don’t practice, demand payment if others practice the claimed invention Flip           Don’t practice, and exclusively … Continue reading

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University Patent Practice: Troll

Here are five ways to use a patent: Nonuse     Don’t practice the claimed invention and exclude all others Troll          Don’t practice, demand payment if others practice the claimed invention Flip           Don’t practice, and exclusively … Continue reading

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University Patent Practice: Nonuse

Here are five ways to use a patent: Nonuse     Don’t practice the claimed invention and exclude all others Troll          Don’t practice, demand payment if others practice the claimed invention Flip           Don’t practice, and exclusively … Continue reading

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Three once-concerns regarding university patents

Historically, there have been three areas of concern for the limitation of university involvement in patenting: (1) the monopoly effect of IP, (2) worrisome commercial behaviors, and (3) the problem of money as an apparent motivation. In the past, when university inventors … Continue reading

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A patent policy’s stated objectives mean something

University patent administrators don’t see that the patents they own and manage are any different from any other patents–exclusion of use, licensing (especially exclusively, for the duration of the patent), litigation, and indifference (failing to license, but no matter) are … Continue reading

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Regulatory limitations on fun-lovin’ university patent administrators

My argument is that university patents aren’t like other patents–not like corporate patents, not like entrepreneur patents, not like speculator patents. My argument also is that universities are limited in how they manage patents, and therefore they are not in … Continue reading

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Should universities manage patents like corporations do?

We have discussed how university-owned patents are not like other patents. A university owner of patents is not free to do just anything with a patent. A university-held patent is not simply a property right–there are limitations (though many university patent administrators are … Continue reading

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A Good Policy for a Patent-Trolling University

Let’s continue the discussion of how university-owned patents might differ from other patents. We have considered the idea of “first use exhaustion” under Bayh-Dole: if the express purpose of Bayh-Dole is to use the patent system to promote utilization of … Continue reading

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University Patent Management, Part I

Should a patent on an invention made at a university be managed any differently from a patent on an invention made in a company or made by an independent inventor? That’s a fundamental question, and one that shapes university patent policies … Continue reading

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Conspiracy against inventors’ rights and 18 USC 241/42 USC 1983

University administrators have been fond to claim that the Bayh-Dole Act gives their universities ownership of inventions made with federal support–or a right of first refusal, or a prohibition on assigning ownership to anyone other than the university. This was … Continue reading

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