In this age of polarization, it’s almost impossible to imagine Congress enacting bipartisan legislation that would benefit businesses, higher education, and consumers alike. But that is exactly what happened 40 years ago, and it is worth remembering. As has been outlined elsewhere on IPWatchdog in 1980, Democrat Senator Bayh and Republican Senator Dole wrote a bill that seemed simple, but changed the face of American innovation. Prior to the Bayh-Dole law, anyone who accepted government funding of their research had to give any resulting patent rights to the government. Superficially, that sounded fair – if taxpayer money paid for research, the taxpayer should get the benefits. But the reality was that no one benefitted. Few companies had any interest in investing the substantial resources necessary to transform an early invention into a product when the underlying patents were held and controlled exclusively by the government. And those inventions that were developed simply sat on the shelf in government offices with no plans to bring them to market. Senators Bayh and Dole recognized this problem and their bill allowed research institutions to keep possession of the patent rights their research produced.
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Recent Posts
- USTR Needs to Step Up Trade Enforcement
- IP Practice Vlogs: Claiming Foreign Priority – An Overview of Patent Cooperation Treaty, Paris Convention and Patent Prosecution Highway Practice
- Other Barks & Bites for Friday, May 20: CAFC Remands No Case or Controversy Determination to Eastern Texas, Ninth Circuit Rules 2018 Farm Act Legalized Delta-8 THC Trademarks, and EU Commission Directs Member States to Codify Copyright Rules
- CAFC Gives Google Second Shot at PTAB in Challenge of Communications Patents
- Policy Shift Against SEP Rights Poses Risks for U.S. Innovation and Undermines Mandate of the ITC