Our very own Don Baker is quoted in this article appearing in the October 2008 issue of Technology Transfer Tactics. The article concerns an “inventor” trying to secure a business method patent for a technology commercialization model he claims is novel. Many others disagree.
Money quote:
The same goes for Donald H. Baker Jr., managing partner at Safford & Baker PLLC, Bloomfield Hills, MI. There are already foundations that hold entire portfolios for their respective universities doing the very thing Buck envisions, he says, pointing to the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation as an example. Other universities have similar outside “holders” of their IP, he adds, and several private companies employ a similar model. “The patent application is very much non-novel and should be disallowed,” he asserts. “The application sounds like a variation in corporate organization, as opposed to creation of something new or beneficial. I think that the business idea is well worth exploring, but the patent spin on it is, to me, unjustified.”
–Matt
