Lawmakers and UW-Madison scientists lectured Friday on the implications of the 1980 federal legislation that granted universities financial ownership of the patents and advancements made using federal funds.
The 2006 Robert W. Kastenmeier Lecture focused on praising the recently criticized Bayh-Dole Act by pointing to what lecturers described as the far-reaching positive effects it has had on university research nationwide.
Former U.S Sen. Birch Bayh, D-Ind., co-author of the Act, said giving universities the ability to sell technology to private companies allows for swift integration of technology into the marketplace so it may immediately serve the public.
Bayh said he believes businesses would not invest significantly in technology if any company could obtain access to it due to federal ownership.
Lecturers refuted the arguments of law professors Rebecca Eisenberg of the University of Michigan and Arti Rai of Duke University, two opponents of the act. According to Eisenberg and Rai, universities should not have power over commercializing advancements achieved using federal funding, arguing that doing so places profits over life-saving initiatives.
The UW-Madison researcher who discovered how to stimulate vitamin D production in milk, a breakthrough that garnered millions of dollars in royalties for the university, said he wouldn't be at UW-Madison if it had not been for the Bayh-Dole Act. Hector DeLuca claimed he and many other leading researchers would leave universities for private enterprise if their discoveries became government property.
Nevertheless, some university-affiliated researchers and leaders in technology distribution are taking jobs with the private sector, in part because universities are widely thought to initiate discoveries that can then be used in more in-depth private research. Beth Donley, former director of the WiCell Research Institute, resigned Oct. 16 to pursue career interests in the private sector, just six weeks after she was named director.
Carl Gulbrandsen, managing director of the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation, said UW-Madison is unique because it does not require professors to sign a contract stating that their discoveries are property of the university.
""Generally one does not seek a patent for philosophical purposes,"" said Gulbrandsen, who said the Act helps put discoveries quickly into practical use. He said professors' ""interest is less making money than seeing their invention used.""
He stressed the importance of Bayh-Dole, saying universities cannot invest large sums of money in research without the assurance they will profit from selling their discoveries to private enterprises. Gulbrandsen pointed to the university's receiving 3,000 patents per year today compared to 300 per year before the Bayh-Dole Act as an example of the legislation's success.
UW-Madison's stem cell patent holdings recently came under fire by the California-based Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights for allegedly restricting research in other states by charging corporate companies research license fees of up to $400,000. The Foundation argues WARF's patented methods of stem cell propagation, developed by UW-Madison scientist James Thomson, were not new discoveries and that the work was ""obvious."" The U.S. Patent and Trademark office announced Oct. 3 it will review UW-Madison's stem-cell patent holdings.
