Recent Supreme Court decisions may have given states, including research universities, a leg up on the competition by making them immune from suits over patent infringement. Many lawmakers and biomedical executives are pushing Congress to pass legislation closing what they see as a potential multibillion-dollar loophole in the patent laws. But some academics and state officials say that Congress should wait to see if a problem develops before acting.

Academic researchers have regularly ignored patents on key technologies as a strategy to maneuver around patent thickets and freedom-to-operate issues, but they may be more at risk than they realize.

Critics Say Rulings Give State U. License to Steal

Are university researchers at risk for patent infringement

Intellectual property, particularly patents, plays a major role in innovation and discovery in biotechnology. Likewise, since the passage of the Bayh-Dole Act in 1981, patents have become an increasingly important factor in U.S. university-driven basic research, especially in the life sciences where patented technologies have transformed agriculture. Specifically, this paper looks at the potential impacts of these trends on university driven research, the university researcher, the pharmaceutical industry, and the farm sector with an emphasis on recent and pending court cases and legislation. This paper examines policy and adoptions issues in biotechnology and biomedicine in depth and touches on important developments in the tech sectors as a back drop for pending legislation and recent court rulings. How policy is adopted, implemented and interpreted have profound impacts on food production, medical ethics, ecology, U.S. and international farm and innovation sectors and the competiveness of the U.S. in the global economy

/pdf/intellectual-property-and-policy-issues-in-biotechnology-1ti373tr3p.pdf

Intellectual Property and Policy Issues in Biotechnology

Intellectual Property and Commercialization of the University

Systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge

Critics Say Rulings Give State U. License to Steal

Citations

Are university researchers at risk for patent infringement

Intellectual Property and Policy Issues in Biotechnology

Intellectual Property and Commercialization of the University

Related Papers (5)

Patent Litigation Reform: The Courts, Congress, and the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure

Patent Trolls and Preemption

Trolls and Titans Take Fight to Top Court

How the 'New GM' Can Steal from Toyota

Facing Down the Trolls: States Stumble on the Bridge to Patent-Assertion Regulation