Posts Tagged: "research"

Any government truly interested in commercializing its research must realize that time is of the essence, risk is inherent in the process and deal makers should be supported by process. Napoleon adopted the motto: “Not a moment must be lost.” But quoting Napoleon may be too intimidating for times like these, so how about Larry the Cable Guy? Perhaps we still retain enough of the American spirit to embrace: “Git ‘er done!” Time will tell (perhaps sooner than we imagine). We’ve been trying to drive the federal R&D system with the parking brake on. It’s time to put product people behind the wheel, buckle the process people safely in, release the brake, hit the gas and get rolling. Those that used to be far behind are coming up fast in our rear view mirror.

The Bayh-Dole Act was passed because Congress was rightly concerned that potential benefits from billions of dollars of federally funded research were lying dormant on the shelves of government. Government funded inventions tend to be very early stage discoveries—more like ideas than products—requiring considerable private sector risk and investment to turn them into products that can be used by the public. Under prior patent polices government agencies took such inventions away from their creators and offered them non-exclusively for development. There were no incentives for the inventors to remain engaged in product development. Not surprisingly, few such inventions were ever commercialized even though billions of dollars were being spent annually on government R&D.

There’s nothing in the world like the U.S. public research system which is on the cutting edge of every field of science. However, to fully benefit from this investment discoveries must move from the laboratory into the marketplace. This can only happen when partnerships with U.S. industry are be made on terms conducive to commercialization. Additionally, in a time of tight budgets federal research must be efficiently managed even if that means crossing traditional agency borders to leverage resources and increase impact. Someone must be charged with insuring that the system is running as Congress, the President, and most importantly, the American people intend.

I think these results show that the disclosure function of patents is working to at least some extent, at least in nanotech: patents can be a useful source of technical information, and willful infringement concerns are not preventing most nanotech researchers from looking at patents. But there are still problems with patent disclosure: the result that only 38% of patent readers think those patents are reproducible raises questions about whether disclosure ought to be improved just to meet current legal requirements.

We have made significant strides over the past 30 years through laws like the Bayh-Dole Act, the Federal Technology Transfer Act, and supporting Executive Orders leading to the creation of 9,000 new companies around university inventions, the development of 153 new drugs from federal funding now protecting public health world-wide, the leadership of the U.S. biotechnology industry, the addition of $836 billion to our gross domestic product supporting 3 million good jobs from university patent licensing between 1996-2012, etc. Still as far as we have come, it’s clear that we could be doing even more to reward the hard earned taxpayer dollars spent on public R&D.

Several public interest groups recently filed a march in petition under the Bayh-Dole Act asking NIH to force Abbott Laboratories to license its competitors for the production of Ritonavir, a drug used to treat AIDS.  Drug developers face a daunting task. For every 5,000 drugs tested, about five proceed to clinical trials. Perhaps one is eventually approved.  That one must not only pay for itself, but for all the company’s other drugs that died along the way. This grim math eludes the petitioners.

Right now the best business to be in at the moment is the patent enforcement business, at least if you are concerning yourself with low-risk monetization with high reward. Between the legacy issue of bad patents, patent auctions and the many who purchase patents, what has started to happen is that the patent system rewards those who have the finances and ability to game the system. But the problem is extraordinarily complex.

The Bayh-Dole Act unlocked those discoveries that were made with taxpayer money. It allowed businesses and nonprofits, such as universities, to retain title to their inventions that were made with federal funds and to license them to private companies for commercialization. It was a brilliant piece of bipartisan legislation that set the stage for commercializing hundreds of products, including life-saving treatments to which many of us cancer survivors owe our lives.

By SENATOR BIRCH BAYH — What should we say about a steward that manages billions of dollars in public research funds not aimed at finding commercial products and turns them in to hundreds of billions of dollars in economic impact while supporting millions of jobs? You would think that a sincere “thank you” was in order. But many are saying that the system producing such riches is broken. Remarkable. The Bayh-Dole Act created no new bureaucracy, costs taxpayers nothing, and decentralized technology management out of Washington. It’s widely touted as a key in turning the U.S. economy around.

Article One Partners, the world’s largest patent research community, has several interesting patent search projects ongoing at the moment. But there is no doubt that looking for prior art can be a little like looking for a needle in a haystack. The Article One approach, therefore, is to tap into a global community of researchers.

Breakthroughs in science and engineering create foundations for new industries, new companies, and new jobs. This is undeniably true. The question is how do we unleash this engine of growth? I am in favor of streamlining the technology transfer process, but I believe that it needs to begin from within. Universities have to revise the view of their appropriate role. Universities are not supposed to be in the business of technology transfer to make money, but rather to facilitate the development of exciting new innovations while training the next generation of engineers and scientists. By developing exciting new innovations and then placing them into the private sector the University plays a vital role in the innovation economy. Under-funding and over-working technology transfer departments is counter-productive.

The question may arise – what if the result of crowdsourcing is less than the proverbial “smoking gun,” can it place the App Developers at a disadvantage in court? Case law indicates that the answer is no. Last year, in a patent litigation brought by Personal Audio LLC, the plaintiff attempted to argue that their patent was valid based on crowdsourced research and to seek discovery on this basis. Personal Audio lost on both counts, with federal Judge Miriam Cedarbaum concluding, “eliminating a negative doesn’t show validity” and commenting on the patent owner’s approach with the statement “that’s what I call desperation.” Transcript of Oral Argument and Decision at 12-13 and 14, Personal Audio LLC v. Sirius XM Radio, Inc. et al, No. M8-85 (S.D.N.Y. Nov. 2, 2010).

In the election yesterday the Republicans scored an enormous victory in the United States House of Representatives, gains of a still unknown number in the United States Senate, and gains in Governors’ races as well as State House and State Senate chambers across the country.  Earlier this afternoon, at 1:00 pm Eastern Time, President Barack Obama held a press conference…