Posts Tagged: "President’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness"

Jobs Council Seeks Open Source Approach to Tech Transfer

It would be bad enough if politicians did nothing once elected, but it seems that they have a knack for doing those things that will do the most harm. That is why one of the recommendations in the interim report has me rather concerned. On page 21 of the report the Jobs Council recommends: “the Administration should test an ‘open source’ approach to tech transfer and commercializations.” What does that even mean? It might sound good to some, and certainly is the “in thing” to recommend I suppose. After all, “open source” is the solution to all the problems of the world, right? Never mind that the open source community has yet to identify a long term, stable business model that makes money.

Shooting Ourselves in the Foot

Contrary to the tone of the Jobs Council report, U.S. academic technology commercialization made possible by Bayh-Dole is a world- wide recognized success. The law allowed universities and small companies to own and manage inventions arising from federally supported R&D. It decentralized technology management from Washington, allowing a market driven system to flourish. It did not create any new bureaucracy to select winners and losers. And it works in the hard, cold light of day.