Category Archives: Policy

A present assignment wouldn’t have saved Stanford claim

Posted on April 13, 2012 by Gerald Barnett

Since the topic keeps coming up, let’s look again at Stanford v Roche.   The standard analysis is that the case teaches universities that they have to make their invention assignment agreements “tighter”.  The argument goes, in Stanford v Roche a … Continue reading →

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A serious flaw in a paper about a serious flaw in Bayh-Dole that isn’t a flaw

Posted on April 12, 2012 by Gerald Barnett

A recent paper argues that there’s a hole in Bayh-Dole’s treatment of assignments.  I thought that for a while, but then I went and read the law and the implementing regulations and realized that there was no hole. In Stanford … Continue reading →

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The Retrenchment Movement

Posted on April 12, 2012 by Gerald Barnett

The Stanford v. Roche case was about how universities get ownership of inventions under Bayh-Dole. Stanford argued vesting. The Solicitor General argued voiding all other alternatives. WARF argued faculty were gullible, inept, and selfish. AUTM threw sticks and dirt in … Continue reading →

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Penn State gets innovative

Posted on April 11, 2012 by Gerald Barnett

[updated 5/31/16 to repair/replace broken links; PSU has removed the committee report proposing the change in industry contracting requirements] Penn State has for years been one of the leaders in industry sponsored research.  In the past few months, they have … Continue reading →

Posted in Policy, Sponsored Research, Technology Transfer | 2 Comments

It’s a dead parrot, guys

Posted on April 11, 2012 by Gerald Barnett

Joe Allen, whom I respect a great deal for his work on Bayh-Dole, won’t give up after the ruling on Stanford v Roche.  He has published a piece that aims to undermine the arguments I made in a commentary published … Continue reading →

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Breaking a social contract, with startups

Posted on April 4, 2012 by Gerald Barnett

For those universities that have made it a centerpiece of their practice to start companies as a way to get rich and create jobs, there’s a sobering critique of using the venture capital route to do it in the April … Continue reading →

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Equity culture vs bonus culture

Posted on March 26, 2012 by Gerald Barnett

Paul Graham has a new essay on the challenges of concepts of property that don’t work.  For instance, ownership of smells, which might work on a moonbase selling air with distinctive scents to people, but strikes us as a foolish … Continue reading →

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The loss of university invention selectivity

Posted on March 20, 2012 by Gerald Barnett

A primary argument for university involvement in the management of federally supported inventions was that university agents were reporting something like 30% of their inventions under management were being placed with commercialization partners, while the federal agencies’ rate was something … Continue reading →

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Abandoning the Original Arguments

Posted on March 14, 2012 by Gerald Barnett

Vannevar Bush’s Science the Endless Frontier is a pivotal document.  It restates the arguments for the value of research and creates a mandate for the use of public funds in supporting universities both in their basic research and their instruction. … Continue reading →

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The Root of the Problem

Posted on March 11, 2012 by Gerald Barnett

In the current Businessweek there’s a short interview by Tom Keen with John Taft about the idea of stewardship in the banking industry.  The parallels with university IP are striking: [T]he leaders of our financial institutions lost touch with their … Continue reading →

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