Universities as Guardians of Their Inventions

Universities occupy a central position in U.S. innovation policy as the engines of innovation. To fuel the development of new and socially useful technologies, federal and state policymakers charged with encouraging innovation channel billions of dollars into universities for the purpose of generating and disseminating knowledge. They expect universities to produce inventions that can be patented and moved into the private sector for commercialization, a policy approach that was hardwired into law with the passage of the Bayh-Dole Act in 1980. The seeming success of this university-driven, patent-centered innovation strategy has prompted a number of other countries to pursue similar strategies.