Re: [Patents] On State Sovereign Immunity and Senate Bill 2031, Leahy's "IP" Protection Restoration Act

[Bernard Lang <Bernard.Lang@inria.fr>]

This seems far too long and complex.

Can you summarise briefly the issue ?

Bernard


On Tue, Apr 02, 2002 at 03:43:06PM -0500, Seth Johnson wrote:
> 
> Following is a letter going out from the Bayh-Dole
> stakeholders at United States Universities (University
> "Technology Transfer Officers") on Leahy's Senate Bill
> S-2031 (The "Intellectual Property Protection Restoration
> Act").  
> S-2031 is a cynical Bill specifically designed to counter
> the fact that as sovereign powers, States and their
> Universities have the power of immunity against Federal
> claims of intellectual property infringement.
> 
> The letterwriters specifically state that they are
> supportive of preventing "end runs" on the part of the
> States, if the Bill adds provisions to allow individual
> State Universities to grant waivers for themselves,
> independently.
> 
> We should be driving a wedge between the States, who should
> know better, and the Feds, who are coopting the Universities
> in their mission.  This situation places at stake one of the
> most powerful recourses to which American citizens might
> resort against a large array of issues related to so-called
> "intellectual property."
> 
> Following are 1) a snippet of the Alternet article on
> Bayh-Dole; 2) the reformist letter; and 3) the (proposed
> amended version of) S-2031.
> 
> Seth Johnson
> 
> 
> On Bayh-Dole, see:
> 
> http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=9290:
> http://www.openinformatics.org/faq.html#bayh-dole
> 
> ----
> 
> (From the Alternet article on Bayh-Dole:)
> 
> Prior to the passage of the Bayh-Dole Act, patent laws
> 

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