Patents: universities are right to partner


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Access through your institution Buy or subscribe I disagree with your groundless suggestion that partnerships between universities and patent firms are “unseemly” (_Nature_ 501, 471–472;


2013). Such partnerships stand to increase the rewards and level of protection for inventors, which are, after all, the purposes of a patent. Some critics argue that a university's


mission should be to disseminate knowledge — in which case, universities are free simply to publish their inventions without patenting them or to seek a patent and offer a free licence. But


others choose to patent their inventions to recoup their research dollars and reward their inventors, as the US Bayh–Dole Act encourages. Companies such as Intellectual Ventures in Bellevue,


Washington (of which I am founder and vice-chairman), facilitate these choices. This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution ACCESS OPTIONS Access through your


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FAQs * Contact customer support AUTHOR INFORMATION AUTHORS AND AFFILIATIONS * Intellectual Ventures, Mountain View, California, USA Peter Detkin Authors * Peter Detkin View author


publications You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar CORRESPONDING AUTHOR Correspondence to Peter Detkin. ETHICS DECLARATIONS COMPETING INTERESTS P. D. is co-founder and


vice chairman of Intellectual Ventures. RIGHTS AND PERMISSIONS Reprints and permissions ABOUT THIS ARTICLE CITE THIS ARTICLE Detkin, P. Patents: Universities are right to partner. _Nature_


502, 448 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1038/502448a Download citation * Published: 23 October 2013 * Issue Date: 24 October 2013 * DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/502448a SHARE THIS ARTICLE Anyone


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