Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, this resolution recognizes the 30th anniversary of the Bayh-Dole Act, a landmark piece of legislation that reshaped the landscape of technological innovation in the United States by clarifying intellectual property rights in government-funded inventions. What that means is that, prior to this act, our country was stuck in a form of economic malaise, and innovation was, frankly, stifled. The stiff international competition we faced at the time wasn't just a matter of Europe and Japan getting back on their feet. It was also a matter of them, frankly, outpacing us in technological development. We knew we had to better harness all our innovation capacity, particularly the work being done at our research universities. At the time, policies mandated Federal Government ownership of patent rights for any research done with Federal funding. Since most university research had some sort of Federal funding, the universities had no say, and no stake, in the patent rights of their own research. Then there were the rules in licensing what patents existed which were considered cumbersome and discouraged use by the private sector. The situation literally led to technologies being left on the shelf to gather dust, and we were falling behind in this area. This bill of 30 years ago also revolutionized the way patent rights in university inventions were to be dealt with.”