Dr. Ashley Stevens, President, Association of University Technology Mangers and Special Assistant to the Vice President for Research, Boston University
4 October 2010, The Association of University Technology Managers (AUTM) welcomes the issuance of “Managing University Intellectual Property in the Public Interest,” a new report released today by a committee of the National Research Council of the National Academies.
The report comes at a particularly appropriate time as the Bayh-Dole Act, the landmark legislation that dramatically fueled the movement of university discoveries into public use, marks its 30th anniversary this December. Bayh-Dole established our nation’s current technology transfer system that allows universities to own the discoveries made by their faculty funded in whole or part by the U.S. government and to determine how they will be developed and brought to public use.
The report provides an outstanding examination of our nation’s complex, multi-faceted technology transfer process and concludes that this system has been more effective than its pre-1980 predecessor. We are encouraged by the report’s six findings, in particular its endorsement of the U.S. model of institutional ownership and responsibility for managing the intellectual property created in academic institutions.