Universities Patenting More Student Ideas

theodp writes "Working as a NASA intern, grad student Erez Lieberman had a eureka moment, resulting in an algorithm that detects whether a person is standing correctly or is off balance. Unfortunately, MIT liked it so much they decided to patent it. Seeking permission to use his own idea for his iShoe startup, which develops products like insoles to address the problems of seniors, Lieberman was told no problem — as long as he promised a hefty royalty and forked over a $75,000 upfront payment. Whether or not students are aware of it, the NYTimes reports that most universities own inventions created by students that were developed using a 'significant' amount of schools resources. Colleges and universities once obtained fewer than 250 patents a year, but that was before the Bayh-Dole Act gave them ownership of inventions developed through federally financed research. Now they acquire about 3,000 a year, and in 2006 licensing fees and equity in spinoff companies totaled at least $45B — research powerhouses like Stanford and NYU pocketed $61M and $157M, respectively."

Comments

R&D&Engineering

[pipingguy]

When I worked for [big industrial gas outfit, think major cryogenics] the company contributed to universities in order to have access to Ph.D research. Some of it was good, but the eggheads often "didn't know" (cough-cough) how to adapt/simplify things down to a useful industrial level. The really high-level results stuff was undoubtedly cherry-picked and not exposed to engineering-level people like myself. Those bastards! They should have told me everything!