Three University of Wisconsin Stem Cell Patents Rejected 92
eldavojohn writes "A non-profit alumni group from the University of Wisconsin (WARF) has suffered a preliminary ruling against three of their recent patents regarding stem cells. Given that these patents have been upheld in prior rulings, there is a lot of speculation that they will be upheld in a future court case. From the PhysOrg article: 'The patents, which cover virtually all stem cell research in the country, have brought in at least $3.2 million and could net much more money before they expire in 2015, the newspaper said. Companies wanting to study the cells must buy licenses costing $75,000 to $400,000. The newspaper said WARF recently started waiving the fees if the research is conducted at universities or by non-profit groups.' Should universities (or groups within universities) be allowed to hold patents and intellectual property while at the same time gaining donations and grants as an educational institution — or for that matter government funds?"
Research Exemption? (Score:4, Interesting)
IANAL, but doesn't the Patent Research Exemption specifically mean that research does *not* require a license. Even companies can work on research and clinical trials and they don't need a licence as long as they don't begin commercial manufacture of the product within the patent term?
Re:Research Exemption? (Score:5, Insightful)
There is no such thing as non-profit research at a university today, at least not in the life sciences. The reasons that non-profits are licensing these things is because THEY want to patent their inventions, and sell them to industry. If they don't have a license for the original research they did, they won't be able to sell it in turn. When the federal government started to encourage universities to patent the results of research off of NIH and NSF grants, and charge licensing fees, the whole idea of non-profit basic research died a sad death. Uni's are just for-profit research entities today, teaching is nearly irrelevant (most faculty consider it a burden & waste of their time), the junior faculty don't get paid much, & the post-docs and grad students are essentially slave labor, but the Profs that bring in big grants & patents are paid as much if not more than an industry.
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Why not? (Score:5, Insightful)
Why not? I would prefer a university to hold a pattern any day than any corporate - at least, they are letting other NPOs and universities use it without charging.
In fact, give them more funding to do more research. Let them grab patterns before corporates get there first.
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You are operating under the assumption that a university will act differently (better) than the average corporation.
As this example points out, there is a direct link between patents and revenue generation for most universities. Why would a university miss an opportunity to generate revenue?
Re:Why not? (Score:4, Insightful)
P: You are operating under the assumption that a university will act differently (better) than the average corporation.
Both of you hold the assumption that a university is not a corporation. Whether or not it has such a status in the legal sense is immaterial. In every other respect, universities are corporations. There are for-profit and not-for-profit examples. Some are good "corporate" citizens, and others are not. They produce product(s) and attempt to generate value for their stakeholders. But to think of universities (as a class) to be a less corruptible entity than corporations is delusional.
Corporations vs universities strikes me as a "distinction without a difference".
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U. Wisc? About $3,000 per semester for max. load. It's on the high side for state institutions, but I'd hardly agree that this is a factor keeping people out of college who otherwise qualify.
Re:Why not? (Score:5, Informative)
I think we will all agree on this point. The real issue is the university charging license fees. I actually work at a university and we recently had a big seminar on intellectual property. You can really tell that the administration is salivating at the thought of an extra revenue stream.
And I really can't blame them - everybody is strapped for cash these days. I'm just concerned that it's a slippery slope. I would hate to see the day that universities pass up on research because they don't see the ability to make money from it. "oh sorry professor Jones, we aren't going to allow you to research that. We really need you to focus on things that we can license. Thanks."
So the point of this seminar they made us attend was that everything we do belongs to the university (and I agree) and that we can't release anything without their permission. They want first stab at it so that they can decide if it's a money-maker. Now in the past, I have come up with a neat little algorithm or something and I've just posted it on usenet, or I've answered a technical question on usenet. Theoretically, I'm no longer allowed to do that. My expertise has value and theoretically the university has the right to charge for it.
So the concern is that there is a chilling effect.
Look at what has happened to college sports teams. They are no longer about having fun or enriching students' educations by giving them experience with a team dynamic. College sports teams are about making money for the university - which is kind of strange because every part of a university should be dedicated to education. Sports could be an important component, but it's like they have been spun off into something else.
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I think there's definitely a chance for universities to mismanage or mishandle intellectual property, but I think those universities are the minority. Research funding is already slanted towards research that can be turned into something marketable some day. Is there anything wrong with th
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In my opinion, absolutely not. What good is research to those not involved in academia if it provides no benifit to them? Public universities are there to serve the public and by providing something that can turn into something marketable they, in theory, are adding to the quality of life of those taxpayers funding the unviersity. One can argue all day long abo
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How about a base for potential future research that may have practical applications?
Applied or pure, research is research. Even if our collective short-sightedness doesn't let us see applications of pure research, we're still better off for having done it, because it may lead to future applied research that will have practical applications.
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Are you really that narrow-minded?? First of all, everyone else in this thread has been talking about commercial viability (stuff you can sell) and now all of a sudden you use the word benefit - are you for real? Do you really hear "commercial viability" and morph that into "benefit" inside you brain?? Come on!
All research and all knowledge benefits society as a whole. Just because you can't immediately sell it, th
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First of all, for a product to be commercially viable the product needs to provide a benefit (or at least a percieved benefit). You can argue all you want on that point, but it is a basic principle
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That day is already here. Many professors are hired because of the revenue-generating potential of their research -- whether by licensing potential or the ability to get grants. The research is pre-screened by the administration by hiring profes
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Re:Why not? (Score:4, Informative)
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This is not the case at the Univ. of Rhode Island. Anything you do on their campus, network, with their grad students, etc. they try to claim ownership of.
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I wish I could agree with your interpretation, but I think your use of the word "codified" isn't something supported in the text. Trade secrets (I believe) and copyrights (I know) don't have to be specifically claimed on a piece of work in order to apply. They come along automatically with the creation of a qualifying piece of work. Similarly, something is an "invention" the moment it's created, regardless of the creator's
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University of Wisconsin is actually one of the exceptions. UW does not take assignment of any inventions provided that there are not other intervening rights and obligations. For example, UW (and per the arrangement WARF) takes assignment of federally funded inventions because Bayh-Dole says it must.
Because of this (and for other reasons), universities, including UW, have policies requiring invention disclosure, whether the professor will actually get to keep title or
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Patents, profits, startups, and industry relations (Score:2)
Usually the licensing revenue is divided like this: The professor who discovered it gets 20-33%, the Department he's in get's 20-33%, and the university administration takes the rest to cover legal costs, and random university budget things (like maybe the arts).
I know the professors who generate a lot of patents get the red carpet rolled out for them, but that is because they are
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I mean, it's all fine that the University of Wisconsin is offering their patented technology free of charge to other Universities, but they didn't have to. I'm guessing that most Universities can't afford the $75,000 to $400,000, or wouldn't want to waist their research funds on thi
Reasons (Score:3, Insightful)
The reasons given were that the patents were:
It seems to me that some business model patents and computer patents that were accepted should have been rejected for the same reasons.
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I apologize if you weren't trying to make this assumption, but it bears repeating regardless.
Gov't Funded Research Should Be Non-Patentable (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Gov't Funded Research Should Be Non-Patentable (Score:5, Insightful)
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I understand your point of view but I object to my tax dollars going to an organization which is collecting money through patent licenses. I have no problem with government-funded research or an increase in government funding for research, but if a research organization is going to patent their research (certainly not a very ethical practice [remember the genome patents]), then they lose their government funding and have to make their own money for research with their licensing.
p>It's the same with larg
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This is the Adam Smith warning all over again. Government gran
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(disclaimer: TIME chosen because more authoritative publications are behind subscription firewalls; disclaimer 2: sour grapes due to
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Not to start a GPL vs BSD license argument, but I do think there are multiple ways to ensure that the people get value for tax dollars (as opposed to corporations getting value for tax dollars that may not be pai
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National Security Exception Is Not Unreasonable (Score:2)
Everything is national security (Score:2)
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Splitting Hairs (Score:2)
Whatever. I paid for the research to develop the idea. I want a free license to use the IP in any way I see fit, including commercial development.
Where the money goes (Score:2)
The main reason why university research like this should be allowed to be licensed by the university itself, is that the public gains a direct b
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The problem? Very few government sponsored inventions were ever commercialized.
The other big problem? Universities didn't like the idea of giving up all their rights to sign a small grant. Universities also don't like to do the same for small commercial grants.
The really big problem? The people that know the most about the invention aren't the people in the granting government agency, but rather the inventor/inventor's institution. If you take
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I'm not taking away their rights. By accepting my taxes and not letting me use the IP I paid for, they have taken away my rights!
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Do you pay taxes in Wisconsin? I assume you are aware that federal money doesn't actually fund grants for stem cell research.
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And with the revenue *more* research will be done FOR YOU with LESS of your taxes.
Who pays taxes? Mostly citizens through income tax. Who benefits from research? Everyone. What's everyone's share of "taxes" and "benefits"? Who knows exactly where the dividing line is between "average taxpayers" paying more money than benefit derived - vs big corporations paying tax money as compared to benefit they derive.
I'm guessing that very very few individual t
The newspaper said... (Score:1)
-Just your friendly neighborhood Klingon doing his part to ensure fair use to non-profit groups the world over!
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Warf has had patents since the 1930's I believe (Score:4, Informative)
Whether these patents were good is another thing, I'm kind of hoping they go on obviousness or previous technology, because if they go the only software patent that would even match them might have been RSA. If I had any trust in the patent system to be consistent I would be for this rejection (speaking as a Wisc graduate) and as a principle I guess I still am.
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In essence it does. The public "owns" the university, therefore when the university owns a patent the public owns it as well. The problem with not patenting research is that if it can't be protected it usually never makes into practical use. Whaat good is research to joe public when he doesn't ever see a practical use for it? Sure, some research does fall out of this scope (climate change for example), but for something that can become a tangible prod
Rhetorical statements (Score:2)
However:
*Lots* of things are produced with no "intellectual property" protection. Cars, food, sneakers, bubble-gum,
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Cars? Look up Ford, its subsidiaries, and suppliers on the USPTO, I am sure that you will find a pretty big list. Sure, the overall concept is no longer covered, but they get a design patent for every new model, they patent all of the new gadgets, and the list goes on and on.
I will agree that many products a
huh? (Score:1)
Why not? (Score:3, Informative)
If non-profits (particularly universities) hold patents that are funded by donantions and grants they can, in theory, reduce their need for these sources of funds. The Bayh-Dole Act provided an avenue for this and actually encourages universities to license their technologies.
I am currently a research assitant for the Technology Commercialization Lab (a group that works closely with the Office of Technology Commercialization which governs patent rights for research conducted at the university) at my university and this is part of what we are supposed to do. We try to help professors in either starting a new company based on their research in order to develop a commercial product or to license it to a third party. The university gets 33% of the proceeds, the department gets 33%, and the professor gets 33% of any licensing fees paid to the university. In a research orinted university these proceeds have the ability to add up to a lot of cash to help fund further research, new facilities, and pay salaries. At my university we haven't produced many "killer techs" that have turned into large sums of money, but it can happen. Stanford and MIT (along with others) have both recieved significant sums of money from licensing patents.
1% left (Score:2)
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That goes to me... oh how I wish :-) Sorry, I left out the 1/3% for each party.
yes, I want govt funded work to remain patentable (Score:2)
These results took many years to evolve. Why shouldn't the fathers of this research get the credit they deserve?
Who pays? (Score:3, Informative)
If the government isn't going to pay 100% of the cost of the research, yes. My last research project was funded at 80% of cost. Where do they expect the other 20% to come from if we can't profit from our research?
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Consider yourself lucky. You've hit the gravy train. In Astronomy, you're lucky if you can cover 50% of a research project off of one grant. The typical annual NSF astronomy research grant is just barely enough to cover a grad student's salary plus overhead. A typical non-faculty research sc
Should universities...be allowed to hold patents (Score:3, Interesting)
Well, if anyone should, then better the universities than companies. Apart from that, I would _not_ ever allow _anyone_ to hold _any_ patent in _any_ way related to human health and cure. Yes, I know what that would mean to "health" and drug companies.
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While I do understand the ethical side of your argument (the greedy health care companies), it would never work. If no patents could be held in health care, no companies would research new technologies, and healthcare would become stagnant. Who do you propose handles making new health care technolgies, or are you suggesting that we don't need
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Would you - honestly - trust a pharmaceutical corporation to support research for a cheap and effective cure to ANY of the billion-dollar-revenue generating illnesses out there? This isn't conspiracy-theory 'They're sitting on an AIDS vaccine!' shit either, this is a simple and likely 'Why fund that? It'd just hurt our bottom line.'
Yes, I would trust the pharmaceutical company. The first pharmco to cure cancer or AIDS is going to make hundreds of billions of dollars off the cure, and severely hurt their competitor's bottom line.
If anything completely government funded research would be worse, because the researchers have no incentive to complete their work. What's going to happen when these researchers find a cure? Their funding is going to be cut and they'll be out of work. If anything, they have incentive to string the governme
Re:Should universities...be allowed to hold patent (Score:3, Insightful)
I would _not_ ever allow _anyone_ to hold _any_ patent in _any_ way related to human health and cure. Yes, I know what that would mean to "health" and drug companies.
Drug Research is one of the few areas where I would support a strong patent regime. Your average drug today costs hundreds of millions, if not billions of dollars to develop. There is simply no way for a company to recoup that money unless it gets exclusive rights to the manufacture and sale of that drug. In pharmaceutical discoveries were unpatentable, drug companies would have no incentive to invest in research. What's the point of spending a but load of cash to find the cure for cancer, when there a
patents patents patents (Score:1)
The main plaintiff = for-tech biotech... (Score:2)
We have already paid for it (Score:1)
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This isn't just about Stem Cells (Score:4, Informative)
That university then, 1 year later, turned around and sued the company that had donated the patent for violating it. I'm not kidding. To the order of $300,000 a month. I happen to be involved in the change getting rid of the old coating and moving to the new - just to get away from the litigation.
Don't fool yourself. Universities are not about being institutions of higher learning. They are businesses, out to advertise and make money just like any other business. Their sports programs, their research programs, even the ranking in the grad and undergrad programs is ALL about attracting talent so they can attract more money.
Holding patents? (Score:2)
Hello there, (Score:1)
I own your ass and all cells in it, so patents are right out. Besides, I wanted you to love and help each other and making inventive smart people trying to to do that pay even to do the research sounds, well, exceedingly mercenary even for you.
Granted I rarely say anything, but we're getting to the point that you might wipe yourselves out tomorrow and I'd r