Total nonsense. Bayh-Dole wasn't around in the "1970ies." Universities didn't "patent" because other than MIT, Stanford, and UC, universities directed inventors to external agents, such as Research Corp and local "research foundations." And *those* agents were *selective*. https://twitter.com/uaem/status/1326569371049844736

Those agents didn't "patent" every invention that was submitted to them. Research Corp accepted 10-15%--inventions that made sense to patent, for which patenting might serve a public purpose. Not stupid patenting, like most universities now engage in.

And http://UAEM.org  writes nonsense, too, that Bayh-Dole "started" university patenting of "publicly funded research." The PHS had its IPA program going by the mid 1950s. Latker restarted it for the NIH in 1968. NSF adopted IPA in 1974.

Under the IPA, a nonprofit was required to take ownership and patent every invention the nonprofit chose to file a patent application for. The IPA programs were shut down in 1978 as ineffective and against public policy. Bayh-Dole went right back to that same vomit.

And for all other inventions, nonprofit contractors could request "greater rights," so long as they made a persuasive case that withholding inventions from the public would be better for the public than would be open access.

Bayh-Dole tossed the need to make that case.

So universities were patenting inventions made in federally supported work before Bayh-Dole. Arguments for Bayh-Dole used this fact to argue university patent agents were doing a better job at licensing than was the federal government. That, too, *wasn't true*.

But in politics, what is truth?

The federal government, using open access, *did not need to license* except to regulate for such things as poor quality or misleading advertising.

The federal government was not going to sue its citizens or take a financial interest in the patent monopolies on inventions arising in the research it supported.

Why then would the federal government let nonprofits sue and take a financial interest in its stead?

"We can sue others and run up the profits on inventions made in work aiming to serve the public by suppressing access, competition, and collaboration better than does the federal government." Thus, Bayh-Dole.

But in politics, what is reasoning?

Universities had no special mandate under Bayh-Dole to own inventions, or to patent them, or to patent more. University patent admins and their attorneys misrepresented Bayh-Dole to make it appear that Bayh-Dole stripped inventors of their rights in favor of the nonprofits.

The Supreme Court in Stanford v Roche threw out the misrepresentation, even when former Sen Bayh insisted in an amicus brief that he intended the law to be just what had been misrepresented.

The Supreme Court rejected Bayh's argument, using actual legal reasoning.

Bayh-Dole brought a brutal misrepresentation of inventors rights, and set universities up to sue the public and take a money interest in hoped for outrageous profits on inventions made in work that was to serve the public.

Universities became *way much* less selective, patenting stuff that was suited to open access and withholding it from that access, disrupting competition, collaboration, standards, rapid uptake, and development of cumulative technology platforms.

The federal government held 28,000 patents in 1978, available open access. Universities now hold over 50,000 patents citing federal funding (thanks, Bayh-Dole), most *not* available for any nonexclusive access, let alone open access. Total mess on the floor.

Patenting more + refusing default FRAND nonexclusive licensing is an awful federal public policy goal for inventions arising in work directed at public benefit.

And that policy has had an awful pattern of outcomes in practice.

Bayh-Dole stripped public accountability from nonprofit patent practice. The law requires public protections to show up in federal contracts but does not require federal agencies to enforce those protections or act on rights reserved for the public.

Bayh-Dole purports to make nonprofit patent activity a federal secret. The idea is that transparency would "chill" nonprofits' exclusive licensing business. Funny, isn't secrecy in public matters a catalyst for institutional conflict of interest, corruption, and ineffectiveness?

Bayh-Dole was used to strip inventors of their rights--arguably, Constitutional rights--so nonprofits could patent indiscriminately and withhold inventions from public access, in the hopes of making fortunes which mostly never happen.

And in the rare instances in which fortunes do happen in nonprofit licensing of Bayh-Dole inventions, invariably the nonprofit has violated the law and the federal agency has acquiesced. Especially 35 USC 202(c)(7)(A) and 203(a)(1), as well as 37 CFR 401.14(f)(2).

The nonprofit assigns the invention under the cover of an exclusive license and fails to pass through the nonprofit patent rights clause to the for-profit assignee. 202(c)(7)(A).

The assignee fails to make the benefits of the Bayh-Dole inventions (including any made in its own "development"--it is now also a contractor) available to the public on reasonable terms--including reasonable price. 35 USC 203(a)(1). Federal agencies ignore.

The nonprofits refuse to comply with the written agreement requirement at 37 CFR 401.14(f)(2) and substitute a demand for ownership of inventions from inventors. NIST helps by cleverly changing the regulations in disregard of Stanford v Roche. Upshot: inventors get screwed.

Bayh-Dole was used to destroy public access to federally supported work and to destroy the selective external agent approach to inventions and to eliminate university accountability and public right of appeal.

What got disappeared: "A historical perspective on university technology transfer activities..

Did you know that university patenting wasn’t prevalent until the 1970ies/1980ies with the introduction of the Bayh-Dole Act which started the patenting of publicly funded research?"

University patenting "wasn't prevalent" because

*universities pushed patenting to agents--they didn't do the patenting and didn't set up to sue the public
*the agents were selective for inventions that were appropriate for patenting
*patents were not the goal--more rapid use was