Category Archives: Technology Transfer

The urge to tech transfer

Technology transfer refers to the movement of capability from one group to another.  Three conventional forms are from a developed country to a developing country (send in the tractors, there have to be tractors); from one industry to another (wifi … Continue reading

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Assigning the SPRC

Melba Kurman asks in a comment to the previous post that I discuss assignment of the SPRC in more detail. Melba has an interesting blog on university technology management, so check it out here. [The blog has been retired–but for … Continue reading

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OMG! no OTL required!

An amazing consequence of the Bayh-Dole Act is that no university technology transfer office is required for its implementation.  No OTL, no affiliated research foundation, no nuthin’.   A university can operate perfectly well under standard patent rights clauses by waiving … Continue reading

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The problem with portfolios

A university-based compulsory system of invention management necessarily imposes institutional claims on innovation. Invention administration comes within institutional requirements for risk management, for contracting, for consistency, and for following policies, no matter how badly conceived and how out of date … Continue reading

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Back to the Past

Bayh-Dole applies to federal agencies.  It sets a uniform protocol for how they are to contract with universities for invention rights.   Everything about how Bayh-Dole reaches to universities is by way of agreements and choices.  And it is by agreements … Continue reading

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The Secret Fingers-Crossed Version of Bayh-Dole

[This article was written before the Supreme Court decided Stanford v Roche (June, 2011). It was also written before NIST did its crazy stupid overhaul of the codification of Bayh-Dole at 37 CFR 401, changing references and adding its dumber … Continue reading

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The Bayh-Dole Experiment That Has Failed

Bayh-Dole is a law directed at federal agency research contracting with universities, other nonprofits, and small businesses. Bayh-Dole makes uniform agency procurement of subject inventions—inventions made with federal support and falling within the definition of subject invention in Bayh-Dole—requiring agencies … Continue reading

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Innovation Interfaces

If we are going to talk innovation, then we also have to talk status quo. Innovation points to change, and so we may ask, “change from what?” We can call this what the “status quo”. The status quo is the … Continue reading

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IP for nuthin' and your deals for free

In IP relationships, I talk about the “Big Five”: Ownership Control Money Attribution Risk In the most basic treatment of IP, folks tend to introduce these in binaries.  Perhaps the most common is ownership for money.  But in licensing, it’s … Continue reading

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How the Grudging Farmer Really Feels About the Hens

Here is an entirely typical start to a university IP policy.  I have picked it almost at random.  I don’t have any particular agenda with the school involved.  This sort of reading can be done with most any university’s IP … Continue reading

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