Universities put patent profits in slush funds that benefit nobody but patent administrators
Barnett, Director of the Research Technology Enterprise Initiative at the University of Washington, 16
[Gerald, “11 rationalizations regarding university compulsory patent ownership,” Research Enterprise, 08/01/16, https://researchenterprise.org/2016/08/01/11-rationalizations-regarding-university-compulsory-patent-ownership/, accessed 7/17/24, GDI-JCR]
Most patent royalties received by universities go into slush funds. If there’s a big hit deal, perhaps a building gets constructed, or an investment fund gets formed–use money to make more money and put that money in administrative slush funds. The University of Washington made hundreds of millions from the Washington Research Foundation’s licensing of a hepatitis B vaccine and related inventions, but put the money each year into administrative slush funds, some of which supported research that couldn’t get federal or industry support. I doubt anyone can point to anything of consequence that came of those hundreds of millions. It was like grinding up a truck load of gold bars every year and scattering the dust over the university.
The thing is–patent royalties mostly support the patent licensing office staff and the patent attorneys who do the patent work. While the argument that patent royalties can support research may have been true three generations ago, it’s not true now. Patent royalties support the careers of university patent administrators, and not much else, most of the time. The “royalties for needed research” argument is just a cover for “royalties to seek more royalties.”