Last week, the Center for Indvidiual Freedom (CFIF) submitted a formal Comment with the U.S. Commerce Department's National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) on its Proposed Rule regarding the Bayh-Dole Act of 1980, which granted universities, nonprofit organizations and small business the right to patent and license inventions funded partly by federal funding. 

The Economist magazine called the Bayh-Dole Act "Possibly the most inspired piece of legislation to be enacted in America over the past half century," and rightfully so.  It unleashed a tidal wave of hundreds of thousands of patents issued to American universities and research institutes since then. 

On that basis, CFIF supports the Proposed Rule to the extent that it advances the provisions and intent of Bayh-Dole, with the caveat that insertion of the terms "exclusively" and "of the contractor" in the Proposed Rule's text may open the door for advocates of drug price controls to suggest that business decisions of pharmaceutical innovators regarding the pricing of commercial goods and services arising from the practical application of inventions may serve as one basis for exercising march-in rights.  Neither the text nor the intent of the Bayh-Dole Act allow that, as namesake Senators Bayh and Dole themselves pointed out in a joint statement to The Washington Post. 

On that basis we urge that the Proposed Rule omit those terms.  We must ensure that Bayh-Dole's four-decade legacy of incredible success continues, without the looming threat that activists may attempt to use it to impose destructive drug price controls on American consumers.

Read CFIF's comment here (PDF).