Inventors’ Bill of Rights?

Inventors Digest is reporting that at the Association of University Technology Managers annual meeting, two medical innovators unveiled a draft of the “Academic Inventors’ Bill of Rights.”

Although billed as a “collaborative work in progress,” the initiative highlights ongoing tension between academic and student inventors on one side, and university administrators on the other. At stake: who ultimately controls and profits from intellectual property developed on campuses across the country.

Association of University Technology Managers or AUTM, citing the groundbreaking Bayh-Dole Act of 1980, say universities should own and control IP developed by professors and students when they use federal funds and facilities.

Kaswan’s and Bentley’s bill of rights proposes, among other things:

* Students and faculty have a right to freedom of expression; the right to teach and publish their research shall not be abridged by intellectual property policy.

* Inventors shall be entitled to timely disposition of their inventions and to obtain access to inventions for which the university elects to discontinue commercialization effort, without onerous restrictions or obligations to the university that would act as disincentives to commercialize.

* Universities must establish and publish transparent practices and procedures comprising their commercialization processes.

* Inventors have the right to due process, conducted in public with public access to all records as they may request.

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Photo by yves_guillou.

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