The Pros And Cons Of Bayh-Dole Patents

The underlying research and technology that enabled Google, Gatorade, and fiber optics to develop can be traced back to college campuses across America. Since World War II, America’s universities, mostly through government research grants, have been at the forefront of technological innovation. It is in the best interest of the general public that the scientific breakthroughs occurring in America’s collegiate laboratories ultimately become the foundation for future companies. As a direct result of legislation—commonly known as the Bayh-Dole Act (“Bayh-Dole”)—this occurs through America’s complex patent system.
The process of transferring scientific discoveries from the university laboratory to the commercial sector is known as technology transfer. The Association of University …show more content…
However, Bayh-Dole requires that only 26% of revenues can be used to cover administrative costs, such as the costs of patent applications and sharing profits with the inventor-scientist. The remaining funds must be reinvested to further research and education and cannot be used to cover budget shortfalls. Thus, very often, universities have very small or understaffed offices to mange technology transfer, many of which are not profitable. In addition, some universities have an unmanageable amount of patents in their portfolio. These universities list all available licenses on websites, hoping for an eager entrepreneur to reach out and commence license negotiations. Licensing efforts by universities is also inhibited by the legal restrictions that Bayh-Dole imposes on the university. For these reasons, among others discussed infra at XX, universities become less likely to license patents to industry the longer the patent remains in their portfolio, and even less likely to relicense technology when the original licensing deal

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