Thursday, October 02, 2008

Indian version of the Bayh-Dole Act?


Have you heard about it? I certainly hadn't until I met Mrinalini Kochupillai, an IP lawyer who visited our Institute as a part of her research into, among other IP-related things, how top S&T research organizations deal with their IP. She and her co-bloggers have a bunch of posts on the Spicy IP blog. Worth checking out if you are an academic with an interest in this field. Start with the most recent posts by Mrinalini and Shamnad Basheer, and work backwards.

Here's an interesting bit from Shamnad's post:

In fact, the cost of operating a technology transfer office (TTO) often exceeds the money made from technology licensing. CSIR bears out this point well. While it generated approximately US$1 million in licensing revenues in 2004–2005, it spent more than twice that amount on filing patents.

From the US, where the Bayh-Dole Act has been around for nearly three decades, here's a depressing factoid:

... data gathered by the Association of University Technology Managers, a trade group, show that fewer than half of the 300 research universities actively seeking patents have managed to break even from technology transfer efforts. Instead, two-thirds of the revenue tracked by the association has gone to only 13 institutions.

For a pernicious side effect of this Act in US universities, take a look at Ponderer's post.

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Oh, btw, Spicy IP bloggers have been having a lot of fun discussing the Hari Puttar - Harry Potter controversy as well! Again, start with the latest post and work backwards.

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