Universities are massive patent trolls
Barnett, Director of the Research Technology Enterprise Initiative at the University of Washington, 23
[Gerald, “10 Ways Universities Deal in Patents,” Research Enterprise, 5/24/23, https://researchenterprise.org/2023/05/24/10-ways-universities-deal-in-patents/, accessed 7/17/24, GDI-JCR]
University gets patent, fails to license, and goes patent trolling to force licensing and settlements. Here’s a case where it is clear that holding a patent has nothing to do with development or use of an invention–companies go off and implement the technology on their own (and may not have a clue about what a university has done or claims). Certainly there was no need for patent exclusivity, other than to collect rents from companies for what they have been able to do on their own, and without patents, and without technology transfer. But universities then come after industry for royalties anyway. That’s what Stanford tried to do to Roche, resulting in Stanford v Roche, which Stanford lost, and rightfully so. It’s what the Washington Research Foundation did with its bluetooth patent. What Caltech is doing with its wi-fi patents.
Again, not technology transfer, clearly patents aren’t needed to attract investment, but the university sues for infringement anyway. This is not so much a case of nothing happening–even though in terms of technology transfer, nothing indeed has happened–but rather the university makes something bad happen, something contrary to the university’s public mission and the depiction of university-based technology.