The rise of efficient infringement, a problem for universities
Recent overhauls to America’s patent laws have forced universities and other patent owners into a corner when asserting their rights. Last October, The New York Times reported on the rise of “efficient infringement” which has increased in the wake of the 2011 America Invents Act. Tools created by that legislation to challenge patent validity, such as through the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB), allow major companies with huge amounts of financial and legal resources to ignore reasonable licensing inquiries and to shift the burden onto the patent owner by challenging the patent’s validity.
Many say that hostility toward patents in the courts has reached new heights, with numerous cutting-edge innovations dealing with software, biotechnology, medical diagnostics and personalized medicine all being routinely found patent ineligible. Rather than take patent licenses, or even engage in negotiations, many companies have calculated that they are better served by ignoring patent rights and openly infringing. These efficient infringers dare universities and other patent owners to sue.
As the New York Times article notes, however, there has been a troubling pattern of associating universities with so-called “patent trolls”on the basis that, like other non-practicing entities (NPEs), universities don’t manufacture products but license their technologies to others. But universities are not patent trolls. In fact, the primary goal of the university is to make sure that as much research done at the university is commercialized as possible.
Defending Bayh-Dole Under Attack
By: Gene Quinn (IPWatchdog.com)
On February 28, 2013, I spoke at the annual meeting of the Association of University Technology Managers (AUTM), which was held in San Antonio, Texas. I spoke there about what universities can do to fend off the challenges to Bayh-Dole. As crazy as it seems, there are those who are advocating a change to what has been described by The Economist as the most successful piece of domestic legislation since the end of World War II.
Prior to the enactment of Bayh-Dole in 1980, it was virtually impossible to license University technology. In fact, a grand total of zero… that is 0… drugs developed with university funding from the federal government had been commercialized. Now, the pharmaceutical industry is enormously involved with universities and university research and dozens upon dozens of drugs have been commercialized. University basic science is the very foundation of many of the most exciting drugs, which provide tremendous cures and life-saving treatments. So dialing back the clock to when government-funded research was locked up so tight that it didn’t do anyone any good is simply ridiculous.
03.13.13 | bayh-dole, posts | Gene Quinn
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06.28.16 | bayh-dole, Patent Issues, posts | Gene Quinn