Word: patentable
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Dates: during 1980-1980
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...present, many universities grant licenses to private companies to use their discoveries in exchange for royalty payments. Over the years, the Procter & Gamble Co., makers of Crest toothpaste, paid Indiana University more than $2 million because Indiana held a patent on stannous fluoride. The novel element in Bok's proposal was the idea that universities could make more money by cutting out the middleman and sharing directly in the equity of their own product-development companies. As costs rise throughout higher education, commercial temptations will grow, and the search for ways to turn campus research into cam pus revenue...
...company executives insist that their product represents "a serious effort by serious people to produce a new bird for which there is a genuine need." Americans, who put away 4 billion chickens a year, may be able to test that claim soon: Buxted has applied for a U.S. Churkey patent...
...other Fellows in their consideration of this question. First, the company would have involved a Faculty member--Mark S. Ptashne, professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology--in a major role. Second, the University had to determine its role in the commercial application of its potentially lucrative DNA patents. And, in general, the issue of "technology transfer"--how knowledge is transmitted from the academic to the commercial sector--became more pressing than it has since Harvard re-examined its patent policy in 1975 and decided to help professors patent their discoveries...
While the Faculty debates these issues, the Corporation must also continue to discuss updating the University's patent policy. And both groups must consider Harvard's role in the commercial application of knowledge. In these discussions, other questions will inevitably arise. The Faculty will be forced to look at its tenure process--which could be seriously impaired if Faculty members involved in outside ventures are judged for tenure on their non-academic accomplishments...
...venture like the DNA company proposal, provided the University would not own stock in the firm. Although this type of arrangement would not link Harvard and a Faculty member as shareholding business partners, the University would still receive a share of the company's profits in exchange for its patents and it would still confront as yet unresolved academic conflicts. Before the Corporation ventures farther into the mixed-up world of patent development, DNA technology and Faculty moonlighting, it must consider these issues. Unless University groups continue to discuss the unanswered questions raised by consideration of the DNA company...