Category Archives: Policy

Florida Atlantic’s patent policy misrepresents Bayh-Dole four ways in just one sentence

Posted on February 15, 2016 by Gerald Barnett

I have been working on some ideas regarding scope, but each time I go to university patent policies to illustrate the issues, I find totally crazy stuff. Here’s a bit from the “General Comments” section of Florida Atlantic University’s patent policy [the … Continue reading →

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Life in the fast lane surely make you lose your infringement case

Posted on February 11, 2016 by Gerald Barnett

Here is a simple question: Can a university sue for infringement of a patent on a subject invention? Clearly, one answer is “of course”–universities do so all the time, often playing the troll or the jilted lover. Let’s put the question another way: Does … Continue reading →

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Bayh-Dole, the bureaucratic solution to massive federal funding of faculty research

Posted on February 10, 2016 by Gerald Barnett

Prior to 1912, university faculty generally did not seek patents. Cottrell at the University of California created Research Corporation to act as an external agent to present his and other faculty members’ inventions to industry. The Board of Research Corporation … Continue reading →

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University monopoly IP practices kill the very thing they claim to seek

Posted on January 16, 2016 by Gerald Barnett

Although the Bayh-Dole Act is placed in US patent law, it actually makes few changes to patent law, as the US Supreme Court made clear in the Stanford v. Roche decision. Bayh-Dole largely forces federal agencies to adopt a uniform … Continue reading →

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The VPR Letters, No. 2

Posted on January 15, 2016 by Gerald Barnett

Dear Vice Provost for Research, In my last letter I pointed out how the aggregate-patent-license model for university technology transfer has failed. It is a seductive model. It sounds so reasonable, so clear. And yet it has failed to deliver. … Continue reading →

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The VPR Letters, No. 1

Posted on January 15, 2016 by Gerald Barnett

Dear Vice Provost for Research, An insightful vice provost for research once told me that the director of technology transfer had the second most difficult job in the university, after the dean of medicine. Having served as a director of a campus … Continue reading →

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Some Questions from a Future FAQ on Bayh-Dole

Posted on January 14, 2016 by Gerald Barnett

Q. Can a university violate the Bayh-Dole Act? A. No. Bayh-Dole applies to federal agencies. The law requires federal agencies to adopt uniform practices regarding patent rights to inventions in funding agreements. Bayh-Dole (now) authorizes the Department of Commerce to … Continue reading →

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When the pseudo-Bayh-Dole prophecy fails

Posted on January 1, 2016 by Gerald Barnett

In 1956, Leon Festinger and others published an account of a group in Chicago that believed that the world was about to be destroyed by a flood, but that those who took the appropriate actions would be rescued by a spaceship … Continue reading →

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Voyage of the beagles

Posted on December 28, 2015 by Gerald Barnett

It’s not that I wanted to take a hiatus from posting ideas here at the Research Enterprise blog, but other writing tasks and various gusts of the life winds took me away from this forum. But I intend to be … Continue reading →

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Cornell’s incompetent "procedural revision" of its patent policy

Posted on October 27, 2015 by Gerald Barnett

In 2013, Robert A. Burhman, Vice President for Technology Transfer at Cornell University, sent a letter out to faculty making a claim about Stanford v. Roche: As you may also know, and as discussed in more detail at the end of this … Continue reading →

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