Patent Law Practice Center

Stanford v. Roche and Ownership of Federally Funded Research: Navigating the Vagaries of Contract Law

Mary Hess Eliason, an Associate with Birch Stewart Kolasch and Birch, sent in this article discussing the recent Supreme Court decision of Stanford v. Roche .  The article highlights key points in both Chief Justice Roberts’ majority opinion and Justice Breyer’s dissent and questions whether this case presented the appropriate fact situation to address the issues at hand.

When an invention is conceived, it is generally presumed to be owned by the inventor under U.S. patent law.[1] The Supreme Court Opinion of Stanford v. Roche reinforces this maxim in the context of federally funded research.  The issue brought before the Supreme Court was, in the context of federally funded research, whether the ownership of the invention automatically arises with the federal contractor (i.e., Stanford) or with the inventor under the Bayh-Dole Act 35 U.S.C. §§ 200-212 and whether the inventor can interfere with any right of the federal contractor by assigning the invention to a third party.[2]

In their recent majority opinion, the Supreme Court decided that, based on contract law, an Inventor could assign an invention to a third party, even if the invention was federally funded under Bayh-Dole. (more…)