By Tracy Will
WisBusiness.com
“We are under attack,” were the words Wisconsin Alumni Research Association Director Carl Gulbrandsen used to open his talk at the UW Law
School Friday night.
Gulbrandsen spoke in grave terms about the prospect of losing the Bayh/Dole bill, legislation that enables the conversion of federally funded research into innovative
scientific products and procedures. The speech was sponsored by the Kastenmeier Distinguished Lecture Series.
Gulbrandsen warned that many Bayh-Dole critics come from the ranks of academia. They want to remove Bayh/Dole’s protection for institutions like WARF which share the benefits of federally funded research to the benefit of the reseracher and the university.
Bayh/Dole was a landmark bill passed in 1980 that allowed universities to convert lab discoveries into marketable products. The legislation used institutions like WARF to generate patents for the discoveries and encourage researchers to become entrepreneurs and develop products.
Echoing the potential danger of losing the protections of the Bayh/Dole legislation, was former Indiana Sen. Birch Bayh, the co-author and proponent of the bill.
“We are under increasing attack,” Bayh said, “by people that are unfamilar with the comprehensive nature of this legislation.”
“Those naysayers have no appreciation of the factors that motivated in the first place to develop this legislation.”
“It didn’t just happen. [Wis. Rep.] Bob {Kastenmeier] and I provided guidance,” Bayh said, “but if it hadn’t been for Howard Bremwer (the UW WARF patent officer) and Bob Kastenmeier there would never have been a Bayh/Dole Bill.”
Of course there was the little matter of continued opposition from Louisiana Sen. Russell Long who fought the bill at every turn and even pocketed it to keep it from leaving committee.
“I had just lost my Senate race in 1980 when I got a call from Russell Long, saying, ‘Birch, we’re gonna miss ya. And you can take a floor vote during the lame-duck session on your patent bill, you earned it.'”
That horse-trading moment led to the creation of the bill that enabled Hector De Luca to get WARF to patent his new version of Vitamin D, developed with federal funding, so he could develop a product to market.
Thousands of patents later, and the UW at the threshhold of breaking ground on its “Institutes of Discovery,” DeLuca and Gulbrandsen agreed that
without the legal ability of Bayh/Dole to enable universities convert research into innovative products and techniques the U.S would lag far
behind the rest of the world.
“By the time Bayh/Dole came into being, the U.S. lost technological advantage. Patents had decreased each year because any federally funded
project was gathering dust in the Patent Office, because there was no way the federal government could convert that reserach into useful products,” Bayh told the 100 lecture guests.
“Since 1971, our productivity had declined, and small businesses were getting a smaller share of research funds,” Bayh said, adding that it led
to fewer companies able to capitalize important research.
“With Bayh/Dole, co-sponsored by Kansas Sen. Bob Dole, we wanted to take advantage of the innovative patents developed on our university campuses thought federal research grants, and then take advantage of the entrepreneurial success of small business.”
The rest is history based on the success and growth of the University Resarch Campus, now planning further expansion on Madison’s west side, and dozens of others across the country, according to Gulbrandsen.
“We just have to make certain that the critics of Bayh/Dole at the Unversity of Michigan and others do not win the battle of public opinion,”
Gulbrandsen said.
“Most of the critics constitute a small clique out there.” Bayh said. “So let’s see what we’ve accomplished.”
Bayh recounted that products such as the nicotine patch, 3D surgical techniques, the concept of the Google search engine, and new crops were just a few of the 537 products created by nearly 140 non-profit institutions. He added that another 185 non-profit institutions and firms created another 3,014 innovative products that stemmed from federal
research funding.
Further, Bayh said there were 16,871 inventions resulting from the legislation, where only 250 patents were released the year before Bayh/Dole.
“There’s a challenge out there, and most of you know more than I’ll ever know about technology transfer.” Bayh said.
“We’re in danger of losing the battle over the protection of intellectual property, in this challenge to convert everything to public domain,” he warned.
“And this change could happen overnight with the present congressional makeup,” Bayh said.
“Unless we pick up the gauntlet,” he suggested, “nobody else will.”
