the.com/bayh dole
the law that let universities patent your tax dollars and sell them back to you as drugs.
means a 1980 US act letting universities and small businesses patent inventions made with federal research funding, then license them to companies.
from named for senators Birch Bayh and Bob Dole, passed in 1980 when the government held 30,000 patents but had licensed almost none — the fix was to hand ownership downstream so someone had incentive to commercialize.
before 1980feds owned patents, barely anyone used them
biotech boomcredited with launching the university tech-transfer industry
march-in rightsgovernment can reclaim patents, almost never enforced
drug pricingcritics link it to costly meds from public research