The Scientist, Mar. 10, 2003, Basic Science in US Universities Can Infringe Patents

[Seth Johnson <seth.johnson@RealMeasures.dyndns.org>]

Madey vs. Duke is the misbegotten fruit of the Bayh-Dole Act, which in 1980
established the "technology transfer" regime at universities everywhere in
the United States.  Whereas universities had been the bastion of recognition
of the intrinsically free nature of pure knowledge, Bayh-Dole rationalized
the removal of the scare quotes from the metaphorical phrase "intellectual
property" and eliminated one of the most essential purposes of the
university.

Since Bayh-Dole made universities complicit in allowing research conducted
for the advancement of human knowledge (at public expense) to be handed over
to private interests, recognition of the very nature of pure knowledge has
seemed to have passed out of the political and legal consciousness.  At the
same time, the most likely and appropriate advocates for the truth in the
matter (i.e., research scientists at our universities) have been sold out
and found themselves subject to an administrative system beholden to the
"lucrative research grants" of which this article speaks.

Seth Johnson
Committee for Independent Technology


-- 

DRM is Theft!  We are the Stakeholders!

New Yorkers for Fair Use
http://www.nyfairuse.org

[CC] Counter-copyright: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/cc/cc.html

I reserve no rights restricting copying, modification or distribution of
this incidentally recorded communication.  Original authorship should be
attributed reasonably, but only so far as such an expectation might hold for
usual practice in ordinary social discourse to which one holds no claim of
exclusive rights.