Redeploying Bayh-Dole: Beyond Merely Doing Good to Optimizing the Potential in Results of Taxpayer-Funded Research

19 Pages Posted: 8 Oct 2011 Last revised: 9 Dec 2013

Date Written: September 10, 2011

Abstract

Opinions about the Bayh-Dole Act of 1980 and its implementation by U.S. universities can depend on whether one views the Act as a series of tactics that are ends in themselves or as a policy declaration designed to protect the public against nonuse of taxpayer-funded discoveries and encourage their commercialization, utilization, and public availability. Those views appear to influence how universities and their leaders measure performance and define success, identify and allocate resources, approach transfer strategies, and negotiate terms and apportion risks relative to those terms. Those who view the Act as tactical tend to obscure the broader policy objectives which can result in substantial amounts of university research that is “never commercialized” (Council of Advisors, 2003), “restrained” (Schacht, 2010b), and “left unused and unapplied” (Seipmann, 2004). Society then is deprived of the new products, services, approaches and experiences that can stimulate economic growth and advance human welfare. These and other consequences demand evaluations and assessments of university practices and behaviors and the extent to which they narrowly serve the Act’s tactics or more broadly serve its purposes of pursuing and maximizing the potential usefulness of the results of taxpayer-funded research. Too frequently, there seems to be a disconnect between federal policy and practices adopted or tolerated by universities and their leaders to implement that policy.

Keywords: Bayh-Dole, university technology transfer, advancing university innovation, autm, nine points

JEL Classification: I20, I23, I28, O31, O38

Suggested Citation

Tyler, John E., Redeploying Bayh-Dole: Beyond Merely Doing Good to Optimizing the Potential in Results of Taxpayer-Funded Research (September 10, 2011). Journal of Technology Transfer, vol. 38, pp. 911-929 (2013), Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1932383

John E. Tyler (Contact Author)

Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation ( email )

4801 Rockhill Road
Kansas City, MO 64110-2046
United States
816-932-1293 (Phone)

Columbia University ( email )

3022 Broadway
New York, NY 10027
United States

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