Bayh-Dole Act
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The Bayh-Dole Act of 1980, codified at 35 U.S.C. § 200 et seq., facilitates the transfer of patent rights for commercialization. The goal of the Act, which was enacted during the lame duck Congress after President Ronald Reagan's landslide election victory in 1980, was as follows:[1]
| “ | It is the policy and objective of the Congress to use the patent system to promote the utilization of inventions arising from federally supported research or development; to encourage maximum participation of small business firms in federally supported research and development efforts; to promote collaboration between commercial concerns and nonprofit organizations, including universities .... | ” |
The Bayh-Dole Act has been enormously influential in allowing a university or other entity to use federal funding for research and then obtain patents on their inventions, rather than the government insisting on retaining all rights to patents developed with federal funds as it had prior to this law.
In recent years there has been a debate as to whether the Bayh-Dole Act is working well with biomedical patents, amid many conflicts of interest.