Category Archives: Policy

UW’s Fast Start template, another bad bureaucratic idea gone bad, 3

Posted on December 16, 2020 by Gerald Barnett

GeekWire published an article about what UW calls its new scheme to shorten negotiations with its spinout teams–UW personnel who have invented in their research labs and want to start a company to develop applications and products for their inventions. … Continue reading →

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UW’s Fast Start template, a bad bureaucratic idea gone bad, 1

Posted on December 14, 2020 by Gerald Barnett

GeekWire ran an article recently announcing that the University of Washington has “unveiled” a new licensing scheme for startups: “Univ. of Washington rolls out new licensing process to streamline negotiations with spinouts.” Let’s work through this article and see what … Continue reading →

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Necessary Federal Exclusive Licensing

Posted on November 29, 2020 by Gerald Barnett

The Harbridge House report in 1968 mused that based on survey responses from nonprofit patent administrators, . . . the inventions must frequently arise from basic research and require substantial private development before reaching the stage where they are commercially … Continue reading →

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The Turning Point in Federal Patent Policy

Posted on November 28, 2020 by Gerald Barnett

1971. Here’s where things started to go bad. In 1963, President Kennedy issued a memorandum setting forth executive branch patent policy. When the federal government acquired inventions, the policy stipulated that patents would be made available “through dedication or licensing”–that … Continue reading →

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Why is an invention a subject invention?–1

Posted on November 4, 2020 by Gerald Barnett

Let’s look at three antecedents for Bayh-Dole’s definition of “subject invention”: The Institutional Patent Agreement master, 1968, that allowed participating non-profits to end-run DWEW contracting policy and take ownership of inventions made with NIH funding (Latker said that Bayh-Dole was … Continue reading →

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When to disclose inventions at universities? More!

Posted on October 28, 2020 by Gerald Barnett

Most university patent policies don’t specify exactly when to disclose an invention. “Promptly” is the recurrent–and meaningless–requirement. Here’s Northwestern University: to protect academic priority as well as commercial priority, any Inventor making any Invention or Discovery subject to this policy … Continue reading →

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University Patent Policy for Effective Technology Transfer, 11: Two key provisions

Posted on October 13, 2020 by Gerald Barnett

A university patent policy designed to promote effective technology transfer will have these key provisions: Voluntary participation Default institutional non-exclusive FRAND offer These are key elements. FRAND is “fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory.” We will work through the reasons why these … Continue reading →

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University Patent Policy for Effective Technology Transfer, 10: Exclusivity compared

Posted on October 7, 2020 by Gerald Barnett

Now let’s look at a university that defaults to seeking an exclusive patent licensee instead. That comparison is even worse for leading with a patent license vs research review. There are way fewer folks out there in the technical world … Continue reading →

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University Patent Policy for Effective Technology Transfer, 9: Booking transfer income

Posted on October 6, 2020 by Gerald Barnett

We are considering scenarios that involve patentable inventions as a way to get at what a university patent policy should look like to support effective technology transfer. We compared two scenarios. In the first, a university offers a non-exclusive patent … Continue reading →

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University Patent Policy for Effective Technology Transfer, 8: Transfer parameters

Posted on October 5, 2020 by Gerald Barnett

We are comparing two technology transfer scenarios as a way to get at effective university technology transfer policy. Here are the scenarios again: Scenario 1: University offers a non-exclusive patent license for $5,000 with no post-license assistance other than delivery … Continue reading →

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