© 2003 by Oxford University Press
© 2003 Oxford University Press
NEWS |
Capitalizing on Commercialization: Should Congress Revisit the Bayh–Dole Act?
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Before 1980, the U.S. government retained title to all discoveries that arose from federally funded research. However, the government lacked the means to convert inventions into commercial products and had no effective licensing mechanisms to entice industry to bring these inventions to the market. Potentially useful discoveries languished in the laboratories.
In 1980, after intense debate and negotiation, Congress passed the Bayh–Dole Act, which transferred patent and licensing rights for publicly funded inventions to the universities and small businesses that discovered them. (The same rights were formally extended to large businesses in 1987.) The government may use, royalty-free, any inventions and technologies resulting from publicly funded work, but that right applies only to the intellectual property and not to the end product.
With the explosion of technology transfer activities by American universities since the passage of the Bayh–Dole Act—more than 32,000 licensing agreements enacted, according to the most recent survey
Praise for Bayh–Dole
The Taxol Problem
Calculating Costs