Japan's universities fail to make the most of intellectual property; Nikkei Asia, March 9, 2024

KENJIRO SUZUKI, Nikkei Asia; Japan's universities fail to make the most of intellectual property

"Due to lack of support, patents earn only 2% compared to U.S. schools"

Pitt is a top 20 leader in patents in the U.S.; Pittwire, University of Pittsburgh, September 15, 2023

Pittwire, University of Pittsburgh; Pitt is a top 20 leader in patents in the U.S.

"From quantum computers to better wheelchair technology, innovators at the University of Pittsburgh are always pushing boundaries. Now, a new ranking confirms what Pitt people have long known: we’re among the top 20 most innovative universities nationwide.

According to a new list from the National Academy of Inventors (NAI), Pitt ranks No. 16 for U.S. universities granted utility patents in 2022.

Pitt innovators earned 105 of these patents in 2022, just behind the University of Pennsylvania at 108 and far surpassing other Pennsylvania universities on the list, including Carnegie Mellon University at No. 37, Penn State University at No. 51, Drexel University at No. 57 and Temple University at No. 75.

Drawing from data from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, the list focuses specifically on utility patents, which offer protection to inventors for new processes, machines or other innovations."

Intellectual Property and Education in the Age of COVID-19; Research Symposium, QUT Faculty of Law via infojustice.org, July 29, 2020

Matthew Rimmer, Research Symposium, QUT Faculty of Law via infojustice.org; Intellectual Property and Education in the Age of COVID-19

"Overview

This event will consider the relationship between intellectual property and higher education in the age of the public health crisis over the coronavirus COVID-19. It will bring together scholars, experts, and practitioners in law, business, and education, and examine this topic from a range of disciplinary perspectives.

Universities and educational institutions will play a key role in our local, national, and global response to the public health crisis of the coronavirus COVID-19. Professor John Shine — the President of the Australian Academy of Science — has stressed: ‘As a repository of knowledge, networks, infrastructure and smart, agile people, university science has the capacity to address global challenges.’ Shine suggests: ‘People trained by university science and working within the research sector are the people whose expertise will deliver on this global challenge.’ He has concluded: ‘It’s the capacity to innovate in our university science that will bring us through this crisis.’

This symposium will consider the role of universities and educational institutions as creators, intermediaries, and users of copyright work. It will also examine how universities rely upon trade mark law, branding, marketing, and Internet Domain Names. This symposium will explore the role of universities in respect of research, development and deployment of patented inventions in key fields — including agriculture, biotechnology, medicine, and clean technologies. This event will also consider the tension between the open access culture of universities, and the push towards the protection of trade secrets and confidential information. It will look at recent concerns about the cyber-hacking of universities, educational establishments, and research institutions.

This symposium will also provide an Australian launch of Professor Jacob Rooksby’s Research Handbook on Intellectual Property and Technology Transfer (Edward Elgar, 2020) — which includes a contribution from a QUT researcher on intellectual property, 3D printing, and higher education."

Universities And The Commercialization Of Intellectual Property; Forbes, February 25, 2020

Afshin Doust, Forbes; Universities And The Commercialization Of Intellectual Property

"Universities are, as McLuhan came to understand from his career as a professor, bureaucratic institutions -- risk-averse and prone to discriminate against whatever is politically incorrect. This characteristic is also true of modern research universities, glorified though they are as idea factories.

Administrators might talk up breakthroughs and research acumen, but a typical university will nevertheless direct its resources toward things other than the commercialization of innovations that emerge on campus. When business owners inquire about accessing those innovations, many schools hem and haw, unsure of how to proceed because “those who can’t do, teach,” all the while demanding concessions from the private sector that amount to administrators wanting to have their IP cake and eat it, too."

Justice Department investigates Sci-Hub founder on suspicion of working for Russian intelligence; The Washington Post, December 19, 2019

Shane Harris and Devlin Barrett, The Washington Post; Justice Department investigates Sci-Hub founder on suspicion of working for Russian intelligence


"Elbakyan’s work has been the subject of legal and ethical controversy. In 2017, a New York district court awarded $15 million in damages to Elsevier, a leading science publisher, for copyright infringement by Sci-Hub and other sites...

Sci-Hub has made millions of documents available to users around the world, said Andrew Pitts, the managing director of PSI, an independent group based in England that advocates for legitimate access to scholarly content.

Pitts said there are 373 universities in 39 countries “that have suffered an intrusion from Sci-Hub,” which he defined as “using stolen credentials to illegally enter a university’s secure network.” More than 150 of the institutions are in the United States, Pitts said...

“She is the Kim Dotcom of scholarly publications,” said Joseph DeMarco, an attorney in New York who represented Elsevier in its lawsuit against Elbakyan. (Dotcom ran a famous file-sharing site that U.S. authorities said violated copyright law.)"

Nobel laureate takes stance against allowing research to be intellectual property; The Auburn Plainsman, April 11, 2019

Trice Brown, The Auburn Plainsman; Nobel laureate takes stance against allowing research to be intellectual property

"George Smith, recipient of a 2018 Nobel Prize for Chemistry, spoke to a crowd of students and faculty about the problems that arise from making publicly funded research intellectual property.

Smith said one of the greatest problems facing the scientific research community is the ability of universities to claim intellectual property rights on publicly funded research.

“I think that all research ought not to have intellectual — not to be intellectual property,” Smith said. “It’s the property of everyone.”"

How to make sure we all benefit when nonprofits patent technologies like CRISPR; The Conversation via The Associated Press via WTOP, July 19, 2017

The Conversation via The Associated Press via WTOP; How to make sure we all benefit when nonprofits patent technologies like CRISPR

"(The Conversation is an independent and nonprofit source of news, analysis and commentary from academic experts.)

Shobita Parthasarathy, University of Michigan

(THE CONVERSATION) Universities and other nonprofit research institutions are under increasing fire about their commitments to the public interest. In return for tax-exempt status, their work is supposed to benefit society.

But are they really operating in the public interest when they wield their patent rights in ways that constrict research? Or when potentially lifesaving inventions are priced so high that access is limited? The public partially underwrites nonprofit discoveries via tax breaks and isn’t seeing a lot of benefit in return.

Questions like these arose recently in the case of CRISPR, the promising new gene-editing technology. After patenting it, the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard sold the exclusive right to develop CRISPR-based therapies to its sister company Editas Medicine. Critics worry that this monopoly could limit important research and result in exorbitant prices on emerging treatments."

Major CRISPR Patent-Holders Agree to Patent Pool; The Scientist, July 10, 2017

Aggie Mika, The Scientist; Major CRISPR Patent-Holders Agree to Patent Pool

"The Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Rockefeller University, Harvard University, and MIT have turned over 22 of their CRISPR-Cas9 patents for consideration to be part of a shared, global licensing platform. The Wall Street Journal reports that “the move comes amid growing concerns that the logjam over rights to the technology may hinder breakthroughs in disease treatment.”

“We look forward to working with others to ensure the widest possible access to all key CRISPR intellectual property,” says Chief Business Officer of the Broad Institute Issi Rozen in a news release issued today (July 10).

Groups seeking to commercialize CRISPR technology are often required to go to more than one institution for licensing, according to the Broad’s statement, given that there are 18 different organizations in the U.S. that hold more than 60 CRISPR-Cas9 patents. A pool would simplify this process by creating “a one-stop shop for commercial users.”"

U.S. Joint Strategic Plan on Intellectual Property Enforcement Announced; Press Release, U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), 12/12/16

Press Release, U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO); U.S. Joint Strategic Plan on Intellectual Property Enforcement Announced

[Kip Currier: The following sections of this joint strategic plan caught my attention and should be of particular interest to researchers and universities:

p. 140: "BROADER RECOGNITION OF THE ESSENTIAL ROLE UNIVERSITIES PLAY IN INNOVATION

In addition to their essential role as centers of knowledge, learning, and scholarship, universities around the world are engines for innovation. Universities are often the first step in the innovation lifecycle, but too often the big idea does not make it to the marketplace. The promise of innovation that is first conceived by professors, researchers, and students in university laboratories frequently goes unrealized." 

The University of Pittsburgh Innovation Institute has several initiatives to help university-based innovators get their ideas and inventions off the ground: 

• Startup Blitz

• Blast Furnace

• Randall Family Big Idea Competition

p. 143: "CALLS FOR RESEARCH.

Public policy is at its best when well-grounded in sound research and data. Given the profound technological and legal changes that have taken place over the past several years, it is critical that academics, researchers, the private sector, and others continue to rigorously study the IPR ecosystem to identify areas of concern, emerging trends, and opportunities for enhanced enforcement mechanisms."

From pages 143-147 the plan presents examples of research topics and questions, e.g. 

"Research into Commercial-Scale Piracy is Needed…

• To assess the economic scope and magnitude of digital piracy. Beyond any top-line numbers, what is the magnitude of the harm suffered by the copyright owner? What is the impact on employment in the creative sectors? Who are the entities that profit from, or may be unjustly enriched by, the unauthorized exploitation of copyrighted materials? 

[And]

•  To examine the range of attendant harms and risks to the public. What is the relationship between pirated content and incidents of malware, phishing, or other threats to the public?"]

[Press Release] "Today, the Office of the U.S. Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator (IPEC) released the 2017-2019 U.S. Joint Strategic Plan on Intellectual Property Enforcement, which offers a blueprint for coordinating resources and priorities to sustain a robust IP enforcement environment.

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office partnered with the IPEC and agencies throughout the federal government in crafting a plan that both highlights the cultural and economic importance of intellectual property incentives, and also ensures certainty in the marketplace through enforcement mechanisms to encourage creative growth and minimize misappropriation of innovation. USPTO is proud to play a role in promoting clear, consistent, high quality and enforceable IP rights to enable market growth. The office also provides critical international leadership in protecting IP overseas and navigating international IP laws. From copyrights and trade secrets protection, to the examination and registration of patents and trademarks, the USPTO will continue to foster a balanced IP playing field for U.S. businesses to compete in foreign markets and export abroad.  

The report recognizes how IP-intensive industries continue to be an integral part of a growing economy, and identifies critical and strategic actions to safeguard that innovation and combat illicit infringement activities.

To read the plan, please visit:  https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/omb/IPEC/spotlight/eop_ip... "

How the CRISPR Patent Dispute Became So Heated; The Atlantic, 12/6/16

Sarah Zhang, The Atlantic; How the CRISPR Patent Dispute Became So Heated:

"This week, the biggest science-patent dispute in decades is getting a hearing at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office headquarters. The invention in dispute is the gene-editing technique CRISPR, and at stake are millions, maybe even billions, of dollars for the winning side. CRISPR is the hugely hyped technology that could launch life-saving therapies, novel genetically modified crops, new forms of mosquito control, and more. It could—without much exaggeration—change the world.

Any company that wants to use CRISPR will have to license it from the patent dispute’s winner. Both parties embroiled in this fight are universities: MIT and the University of California, Berkeley, whose lawyers represent rival groups of scientists with claims to have first invented CRISPR. The Berkeley group published their work and filed for a patent first, by a few months—but the patent office ended up awarding a patent to the MIT group, due to some complicated procedural rules. The legal and scientific details of the dispute get pretty arcane pretty fast, but you can read some excellent reporting here, here, and here."

Pittsburgh's smart city efforts include autonomous driving, open data, and renewable energy; TechRepublic, 11/18/16

Teena Maddox, TechRepublic; Pittsburgh's smart city efforts include autonomous driving, open data, and renewable energy:

"Pittsburgh is the home for CMU and it has helped with the push to add new technology. Pittsburgh is partnering with the university to serve as an urban lab for CMU's research and development. A Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between CMU and the city serves as a formal partnership to allow CMU to try new tech around Pittsburgh without undergoing a lengthy approval process, similar to how the city is able to send maintenance crews out to do small projects without first seeking funding, Peduto explained...

The city has formed partnerships with county and universities to create an open data platform. Pittsburgh is providing the public with real-time data about crime, emergency calls, building permits, or anything else being measured."

[Open Access Week Event at University of Pittsburgh] Open in Action: The Government, the University, and You: Presenter: Congressman Mike Doyle, Thursday, 10/27/16 4 PM - 6 PM

[Open Access Week Event at University of Pittsburgh] Open in Action: The Government, the University, and You; Presenter: Congressman Mike Doyle:

"Thursday, October 27, 2016 -

4:00pm to 6:00pm

Stream: http://pi.tt/openinaction

Event Description:

4:00 pm – Reception

4:30 pm – Keynote speech

5:15 pm – Panel conversation followed by Questions and Answers from the audience

Learn about the latest actions around the Open Access Movement in the United States, and how you can get involved. Congressman Mike Doyle will join us to discuss FASTR, the Free Access to Science and Technology Research bill that he co-sponsored, which will require Open Access to all research articles funded by major US Government departments and agencies. He will discuss the history and origin of the bill as well as its current state in Congress, including what this bill would mean for researchers at our universities, across the country, and around the world.

Following Congressman Doyle’s speech, join us for a conversation with a panel of experts on advocacy and involvement in Open Access. James Maher, Provost Emeritus and Distinguished Service Professor of Physics at the University of Pittsburgh, will join special guests including Heather Joseph (Executive Director, SPARC) and Keith Webster (Dean of Libraries, Carnegie Mellon University) to discuss the role of the University and the individual researcher in moving the Open movement forward and what the impact of open access to research will be locally and globally."

Tell Your University: Don't Sell Patents to Trolls; Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), 8/17/16

Elliot Harmon, Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF); Tell Your University: Don't Sell Patents to Trolls:

"When universities invent, those inventions should benefit everyone. Unfortunately, they sometimes end up in the hands of patent trolls—companies that serve no purpose but to amass patents and demand money from others. When a university sells patents to trolls, it undermines the university’s purpose as a driver of innovation. Those patents become landmines that make innovation more difficult.

A few weeks ago, we wrote about the problem of universities selling or licensing patents to trolls. We said that the only way that universities will change their patenting and technology transfer policies is if students, professors, and other members of the university community start demanding it.

It’s time to start making those demands.

We’re launching Reclaim Invention, a new initiative to urge universities to rethink how they use patents. If you think that universities should keep their inventions away from the hands of patent trolls, then use our form to tell them.

EFF is proud to partner with Creative Commons, Engine, Fight for the Future, Knowledge Ecology International, and Public Knowledge on this initiative.

A Simple Promise to Defend Innovation

Central to our initiative is the Public Interest Patent Pledge (PIPP), a pledge we hope to see university leadership sign. The pledge says that before a university sells or licenses a patent, it will first check to make sure that the potential buyer or licensee doesn’t match the profile of a patent troll"

Student-Built Apps Teach Colleges a Thing or Two; New York Times, 8/27/14

Ariel Kaminer, New York Times; Student-Built Apps Teach Colleges a Thing or Two:

"Amy Quispe, a summit-meeting organizer who was finishing her studies at Carnegie Mellon University, said struggles over campus data were so bad in some cases that “in a lot of ways students’ creativity was being stifled.”

Campus software developers say they see evidence that some colleges are becoming more comfortable with these collaborations, though as with any learning process, the path is not always a straight one.

Alex Sydell and William Li collaborated on a website, Ninja Courses, that made it easy for fellow students at Berkeley, and later at four more U.C. campuses, to compare every aspect of different courses as they built their schedule for the semester. Berkeley saw the website’s value and went so far as to pay them for their innovation. (“For students, the offer they gave us was very generous,” is all Mr. Li will say about the amount.)

But when their point person moved onto another job, Mr. Sydell says, they got a cease-and-desist letter accusing them, among other things, of violating U.C. copyrights by using the colleges’ names."

Court OKs Universities' Quest To Turn To More Digital Copies Of Books; NPR, 6/10/14

Lynn Neary, NPR; Court OKs Universities' Quest To Turn To More Digital Copies Of Books:

"A U.S. appeals court has ruled against a group of authors, deciding in favor of a consortium of universities in a case that hinged on copyright law and provisions of the Americans with Disabilities Act. The universities had allowed Google to make digital copies of more than 10 million books so that they could be searchable by specific terms."

Universities in hot water over students' peer-to-peer sharing; ZDNet, 10/25/09

Zack Whittaker, ZDNet; Universities in hot water over students' peer-to-peer sharing:

"The battle against online piracy is heating up: a new artist led initiative is taking on the diplomatic and negotiation approach whereas governments and legislators are hitting down punitive policies on their citizens.

Jon Newton of p2pnet, alongside Billy Bragg, musician and director of the Featured Artists Coalition, have begun work on a2f2a.com, a campaign started to discuss how artists can cut out the middleman - such as the suicide inducing RIAA - and ensure artists are fairly remunerated.

Along with their mission statement, the efforts seem to be focused towards not only admitting there is no technological solution to the problems artists already face, but that users would be “willing to pay for music if they can be sure that the money is going to the artists whose work they enjoy.”"

http://blogs.zdnet.com/igeneration/?p=3168

Intersting development in Georgia State case; Scholarly Communications @ Duke Blog, 7/1/09

Kevin Smith via Scholarly Communications @ Duke Blog; Intersting [sic] development in Georgia State case:

"The copyright infringement lawsuit brought against Georgia State University by three major publishers has been in a relatively quiet phase recently...Nevertheless, there was a development in Cambridge University Press, et al. v. Georgia State University last week that could significantly change the stakes for the rest of the academic world as it watches this case unfold...

For the rest of us, this means that the decision about fair use, if the case gets that far, will be a lot more relevant to e-reserve and course management systems use around the country. That, of course, could be a good thing or a bad thing, depending on how the decision goes. But it seems the decision will be based on policy and practice a lot closer to what many schools use (assuming, of course, that the new policy really does indicate changes in practice). Presumably a ruling in favor of fair use is a little more likely now that it will be decided on the basis of this more pragmatic policy. And such a ruling would more clearly support wide-spread practices in higher education. On the other hand, a ruling against Georgia State, if it happens, would be much harder for the rest of us to explain away and distinguish from our own practices."

http://library.duke.edu/blogs/scholcomm/2009/07/01/intersting-development-in-georgia-state-case/

Universities Cope with New Anti-Piracy Requirement; Network World, 6/15/09

Joan Goodchild via Network World; Universities Cope with New Anti-Piracy Requirement:

"David Reis, director of IT security and policy at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia, has been on what he calls a "nine-month journey" to figure out exactly how he's going to make sure his school doesn't break the law --even though they were never in trouble in the first place.

Reis' headaches began at the end of last summer, just after President Bush signed into law the Higher Education Opportunity Act, the first reauthorization of the Higher Education Act since 1998. The act included several new provisions, but the one that has Reis and others on college campuses concerned is a new requirement that schools ensure they are doing all they can to combat illegal file sharing among students. The new rules, according to the wording contained in the legislation, requires institutions to develop plans to "effectively combat the unauthorized distribution of copyrighted material, including through the use of a variety of technology-based deterrents." Schools must also "to the extent practicable, offer alternatives to illegal downloading or peer-to-peer distribution of intellectual property." Any institute found to be non-compliant could lose federal funding.

The provision made its way through due to the heavy lobbying efforts of groups such as the Recording Industry Assocation of America and the Motion Picture Association of America. Until recently, the RIAA had been waging their fight to stop piracy among students by filing individual lawsuits against those accused of illegal file sharing. But recently the RIAA has said it has abandoned that strategy and will now focus efforts on working with Internet service providers to issue warnings to violators. They have also lauded this new provision in the HEOA.

But Reis said illegal file-sharing has never been a problem at Thomas Jefferson University and the requirement uses a broad brush to paint a picture that is inaccurate in many instances.

"We have not received one complaint about one student. Yet now we have to go out and incur the cost to solve a problem that we didn't really have," he said.

Reis estimates he will spend approximately $100,000 implementing new hardware and software in order to be in compliance with the regulation."

http://www.networkworld.com/news/2009/061509-universities-cope-with-new-anti-piracy.html

Universities Struggling To Deal With Law Requiring Them To Fight File Sharing; TechDirt, 6/19/09

Mike Masnick via TechDirt; Universities Struggling To Deal With Law Requiring Them To Fight File Sharing:

"Well, the MPAA put out a report claiming that 44% of "losses" from file sharing came from college campuses. Of course, the number (like so many out of entertainment industry lobbyists) was entirely made up. In fact, it was so ridiculous that even the MPAA came out and publicly admitted the numbers were bogus and apologized! "

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090618/0337155278.shtml

Big music file-sharing penalties getting tuned out; Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 6/20/09

Michael Fuoco via Pittsburgh Post-Gazette; Big music file-sharing penalties getting tuned out:

"Moreover, it may soon be legal for P2P file-sharing. Major record labels are discussing the possibility of a new entity called Choruss in which blanket licenses would be granted to universities and someday residential ISPs for a fee that would authorize the music swapping.

As for now, the Recording Industry Association of America, the trade group that represents the U.S. recording industry, is dealing with commercial, residential and university ISPs, informing them when one of their users is illegally file sharing, said RIAA spokeswoman Cara Duckworth. The ISPs then inform the violators and take escalating action, which usually first involves cease-and-desist letters and can escalate to loss of service...

According to market research company NPD Group, legal downloading of digital music has now surpassed illegal file-sharing. Legal downloading has risen from 16 to 22 percent of Internet users while P2P downloading has decreased from 19 to 18 percent during that same period.

Fred von Lohmann, senior staff attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a San Francisco-based nonprofit group for consumer digital consumer rights, said RIAA may have lost more than it won in the trial when it comes to public relations.

"If you read between the lines, the recording industry is a little chagrined. They're not celebrating, saying this is what she deserved," he said. "They're sensitive this is an outrageous amount. Even people who are otherwise on their side wouldn't disagree. In some ways, this assists critics of the recording industry."

That's why something like Choruss is a much better approach than punishment in dealing reasonably with file sharing on the Internet, he said. Under the plan being discussed, universities would pay into a fund that would allow their students to "file share to their hearts content," Mr. von Lohmann said. "It's a future-looking piece. It takes policing out of this."

He said that in talking to college students, they all said they wouldn't mind paying $5 more a month in student activities fees for such a service.

"It's not that people won't pay but you can't create a system in which it is harder for them to pay than to do a free thing. At $5 a month, it will feel free to them."

Ms. Duckworth said Choruss is "an innovative way to deal with college online piracy, an interesting concept that is being shopped to different schools. All the major record labels are on board in discussing this, trying to figure out what works best."

She said the RIAA is realistic it will never completely stop illegal online sharing "because we know it's going to happen. We know there are going to be individuals who think music and content should be free.

"What we want to do is to deter casual file sharers, people who wouldn't do this all the time, and direct them to go in the right direction."

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/09171/978771-84.stm