14 Oct University research would likely decline if government took patent royalties
Innovation-inspiring funding for decades of research and patents in Wisconsin would be rolled back if the federal government skimmed profits from patents developed by federally funded universities, experts say.
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick last month in an interview with The Hill said it’s unfair that the federal government gives universities around the country billions of dollars for research and gets “zero” in return. He argued the U.S. should at least get some of that money back when the research it funds creates profitable patents.
“In business, if I gave them 100% of their money, I would get half the profits, with the scientists,” he said. “So I think if we fund it and they invent a patent, the United States of America taxpayer should get half the benefit.”
No formal proposal for such a plan has been introduced so far.
But Lutnick’s remarks, if enacted, would mean undoing the Bayh-Dole Act of 1980. The act says if government-funded research at universities yields a patent on new technology it is owned by that university while the government can use the tech for free.