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

Some balance is needed

[WindBourne]

If these are being funded by Federal dollars, than it should look carefully at how these are administered. In particular, part of the earnings should go back to the feds. But, also, I wonder wether the feds can say we allow the university TRUE LIMITED TIMES with these. The idea of patents and copyrights (as laid out by forefathers) was to give ppl LIMITED time to build businesses off these, make some money and then allow the idea to revert to the COMMONWEALTH. That is, into public space. Now, congress has changed it so that the patent is the money maker.

Australian Universities

[Blittzed]

In Australian Universities (at least the one I work for anyway), students retain all IP rights to any research they conduct. As staff though, we get no rights for anything we come up with. Well, it used to be that way until one professor who developed a new way to treat liver cancer challenged the University he worked for. The judege ruled in his favour stating that there is no contractual 'duty to invent'. Here's the story if anyone is interested...

http://http//www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?storyCode=404351&sectioncode=26

Waterloo

[kcbanner]

At the University of Waterloo, the policy is that any student created IP is property of that student. Its awesome. I love it.

Unsteady ground. Literally.

[psnyder]

We should be careful here. The system may be best left as is. The idea is that:

most universities own inventions created by students that were developed using a 'significant' amount of schools resources.

This is to protect universities against people taking 99% of the university's idea/invention, adding 1%, and then using the university's research to make money while the university keeps begging for donations. Some universities may be fine monetarily, but some need all the money they can get to keep up their standards.

Onto this case. Perhaps MIT & NASA already had the equipment and a similar algorithm that Lieberman simply added an elegant flourish to. If that's the case, he should get some joint arrangement going, but he shouldn't be allowed to pass it off as if he developed the entire thing himself. But what it actually sounds more like, is they both sides significantly contributed, which makes things difficult.

He can try to prove that the university's contribution to the project was "insignificant", but that's going to be a hard sell. If I were him, I'd see what friends I still have in the MIT bureaucracy, see what they can do, and then (while trying to not to ostrichsize them) try to get as much media attention as possible so that MIT can make a good-will announcement that they're giving him the rights.

Re:Encouraging innovation

[drinkypoo]

Easy solution - go to EU. The patent as described is a pure software patent and would be invalid outside US (and Japan). Way to squash innovation, US. :P

You forgot sell to EU. The US and every country getting on board with "our" (not mine) IP laws makes it a crime to sell that program in the US, because the patent is still valid here.

This is what the Gates Foundation is about - they are not there to cure disease. It's easy to see that not every country is going to let them in to vaccinate, because you have to basically adopt US IP law (esp. regarding patents - this is about big pharma) to get the vaccinations.

Canada is rapidly coming on board as well, although I've certainly never heard from a Canadian who thinks that our IP law is sensible. And the fight is beginning to heat up over which parts of Central & South America will get in line.

Re:Exploitation

[mfh]

I would say when you apply inappropriate policy, then you are applying stupidy... but yes, I agree that many universities (and many large organisations) may apply stupidity through their often outdated or naively applied choice of policies.

The process is that someone with great power and possibly little foresight, creates a policy that can be in effect for twenty-five years, or more. During the policy's lifespan, many changes to culture and student life, the economy -- impact changes -- will cause each policy to be less effective, exponentially, as time passes. Some policies will become oppressive, others impotent.

Policies are most effective within the first year of their life.

Lazy university-employed Autocrats will during the lifespan of a policy, apply said policy for the sole purpose to reduce their effort required for them to collect a paycheck. As time passes, the degree of laziness of autocrats increases and so does the size of their paycheck. The life of an autocrat is not too unlike the life of a virus.

Good policies will unleash students, faculty and support staff, rather than bind them to regulations for the sake of the binding. The binding is UNIMPORTANT, yet many autocrats will adhere to rules for the sake of being bound to them. That is a lie.

Therefore I would have to reinforce that most policies are nothing more than exerted stupidity, and should be abolished, unless mandated change stipulations exist that cannot be abused by the fat, overpaid, stupid autocrats.

Policies should be about what can be done, and not what cannot be done. Therefore when some policy doesn't say that something can be done, some level of thinking is required by the student and support staff, to come to a satisfactory outcome.

The reason businesses like IP

[tkrotchko]

...is because it shows up on their balance sheets. Investors like it because instead of R&D being a cost to a company, it now becomes a profit center because R&D creates "IP", much like a shovel and pick create/discover "minerals" that can be sold or exploited.

Never mind that IP is nothing like actual property; they'll keep passing more laws to make an idea seem more like a thing for investment purposes.

Plus, then IP shows up in GDP, can be bought and sold, and "creates wealth". Never mind that it's the equivalent of eating your seed corn to lock away knowlege, the human condition always values being satisfied now versus building for the future.

Re:Awesome

[TaoPhoenix]

You nailed the post I was thinking, so I'll try a followup. Since the RIAA has told us how much IP is worth, that makes the student's contribution about a million dollars right?

What happens if you take a semester off?