Patently-O Bits and Bytes by Juvan Bonni

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9 thoughts on “Patently-O Bits and Bytes by Juvan Bonni

  1. 3

    Two comments on the Dahl article.

    It’s one chapter of a 50 chapter posting on Scholarly Commons titled “Academic Entrepreneurship.” That’s where you’ll find the other chapter titles mentioned in the article. A little user-friendliness in that regard would have been a help.

    Second, it contains the glittering generalities one often encounters in academic writing.

    Just one example: “If the university licenses back to the inventor for them to commercialize themselves, they are still subject to license fees and terms, but they are generally less onerous.”

    “Generally less onerous.” Oh, really? I’ve reviewed policies/procedures from at least five major universities whose terms are so burdensome that the inventor-professors have had to take a pass on self-commercialization. Involving the needed VC puts them on the same footing as an outside entity.

    1. 3.1

      You have a point Cass, but the restrictiveness and conditioning of a university license to a professor can sometimes vary with their university political power [especially the amount of university grant money they obtain] of the professor, relative to the sometimes university political weakness of whomever controls the university licensing. Also, stronger reversionary and monitoring terms may be appropriate considering the lack of business experience of many professors?

      1. 3.1.1

        Thanks for the comment, Paul. I certainly agree that there are a wide variety of things to take into account when licensing to a professor, political power, grant money and business experience being among them.

        A similarly wide variety of license terms are needed to address particular circumstances for each inventor-professor. Terms of their licenses may be more onerous — or less onerous — than those imposed on other licensees.

        That was my point. “Generally less onerous” struck me as one of several generalities recited in the chapter that were better marked as opinion or advocacy.

        1. 3.1.1.1

          +1

          It would be nice if ALL academic articles could be vetted for real world effects prior to publishing.

        2. 3.1.1.2

          Indeed, and if an academic is getting his information from university licensing administrators those are factors they would be unlikely to admit to being subjected to.
          BTW, another university licensing factor can be the number of low pay grad students that professor can get put on the project.
          But all the legal problems caused by universities insisting on “joint ownership” of patents concerned me the most.

  2. 2

    Must be nice to be able to just demand more money and then give everyone a raise no matter how the economy is going or how well the work is being done.

    Gee, give me more money. But you do a crxppy job. Too bad. I have monopoly power so give me more money. But the patent system is falling apart and clients are giving us less money. Doesn’t matter give me more money.

    The PTO will ride it to the ground.

  3. 1

    OT but interesting re the latest PTO fees:
    “The USPTO applied an approximately 5 percent increase to most fees, introduced a new fee for non-DOCX filings, though the fee will NOT be effective immediately, and a new fee for pro hac vice admission. The Office decided NOT to implement the annual active patent practitioner fee at this time.” [Emphasis supplied]

    1. 1.1

      It is interesting in that fee setting ability is heavily constrained and a mere “well, we just bumped everything ‘x’ percent’ almost assuredly
      F
      A
      I
      L
      S
      to meet those stringent fee setting limitations.

    2. 1.2

      Scott’s Post-Grant Blog today also notes: “Most notably, the final rule .. significantly raises AIA trial fees.
      With respect to IPR, the pre-institution fee of $15,500 moves to $19,000, a 23% increase. As for the post-institution fee, that grows from $15,000 to $22,500, thus a successful institution will now require $41,500 in government fees.
      PGR increases a bit more, from $16,000 pre-institution to $20,000, a 25% increase. Post-institution grows from $22,500 to $27,000, thus a successful PGR institution will now require $47,000 in government fees.
      The PTAB largely justifies the increase in costs on additional work stemming from the Supreme Court’s decision in SAS, and increased review of discretionary considerations.”

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