The 1980 Bayh-Dole Act launched numerous technology commercialization programs at American universities. According to the Association of University Technology Research, more than 225 universities receive approximately $30 billion in federal grants and receive more than $2 billion in royalties from more than 3,000 patents or other intellectual property licensing agreements.
Unfortunately, despite this activity and setting aside academic arguments for basic research needs and indirect spin-off jobs in the private sector, a $2 billion return from a $30 billion tax payer investment is a ticket to bankruptcy by most corporate financial benchmarks. Further, despite dramatic changes in the innovation landscape, there have been no significant modifications in the Bayh-Dole act in 30 years targeted at improving these results.
Additional financial returns are “roadblocked” because there is no effective/efficient method for private sector businesses to match university research with business’s commercialization potential. For example, a business in Pocatello, Idaho has no way of knowing that a federally funded university research project at the University of Florida in Gainsville, Florida has developed a technology that matches the needs of the Pocatello, Idaho business’s needs. A national research data base Internet accessible by small and large businesses would break this “roadblock” and release the full commercialization potential and intent of the Bayh-Dole Act. This initiative would solve several problems that currently face universities that are trying to commercialize technology. There have been several attempts to establish just such a network but no well funded national program has evolved.
The Bayh-Dole Act should be amended and $100 million allocated to establish a comprehensive program to accelerate the commercialization of university technology. To do less is to keep sending $30 billion of taxpayer research into empty space.
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