If it ain't broke, break it.
This is Joe Biden's guiding principle. He took the southern border, kept tightly guarded by President Donald J. Trump, and tore him open like the belly of a gutted trout. Biden has turned Trump's energy independence into begging Iran and Venezuela for more oil supplies. He also translated President Trump's Middle East peace into a five-front Arab war against Israel, allowing Houthi terrorists to turn the Red Sea into a firing range.
And Biden's next trick is to impersonate a Latino dictator.
On Dec. 7, a day that will live in infamy, the Biden administration's Commerce Department proposed a mechanism to invoke the bipartisan so-called “march-in” clause from the 1980s. Bayh-Dole Act. This allows Uncle Sam to capture and capture. Manage patents Full or partial federal research grants were provided when bureaucrats in Washington disliked the market price or subsequent speed of technology deployment.
As always, Biden wants to overturn the efficient and productive status quo. Universities and other institutions own the patents since Sens. Birch Bey (D-Ind.) and Bob Dole (R-Kansas) secured the bill. What came out of that Federally funded research. Many companies then license these patents to businesses and entrepreneurs who develop them into products and services. (Formally this law it is University and Small Business Patent Procedures Act of 1980. )
“Since its enactment more than 40 years ago, this law has facilitated nearly 300 new medicines and discoveries, driving an innovation economy. $1.7 trillion “Gross industrial production in the United States increased and more than 5.9 million jobs were added,” said Laura Savatsky, former president of AUTM. Intellectual Property Licensing Group.
Before Bayh-Dole, less than 5% Licensed out of federally supported patents. By 2022, AUTM data As shown, of the 16,857 U.S. patent applications filed that year, 9,884 licenses and options resulted. By this measure, 58.6% of patents are typically licensed each year, nearly 12 times the pre-Bayh-Dole pace.
The resulting embarrassment of wealth has improved lives from Kansas to Kazakhstan.
- Google Pioneering search algorithm
- firefighting drone
- HDTV
- honey crisp apple
- nicotine patch
- rotavirus vaccine
- taxol cancer treatment
- touch screen
- Windows software
- Zerit anti-AIDS treatment drug
Now imagine a life with few new entertainments, business tools, or treatments. The ever-hands-on Biden now wants new powers to reassign or simply nationalize patent licenses if his pests decide these products won't get to market quickly or cheaply enough. .
“Bayh-Dole did not intend “The government sets the price of the resulting product,” the authors explained. washington post. “The law is silent on what a fair price the government should dictate. This omission was intentional.” (Related: DeRoy Murdock: Boom Boom — Out Go the Lights!)
Such big government whims will karate-chop private investment. Why would venture capitalists license new patents when a meddlesome entity in the federal government could step in, expropriate patents, and award patents to politically connected competitors?
Worse, anti-capitalist bureaucrats could seize licenses and sit on them shouting, “It's fair!” “Social justice!” or “climate!”
Biden & Co. claims cheaper medicines will flow in if states go ahead. Like the mighty Mississippi River. This will prove to be yet another Marxist mirage, as drug companies avoid licensing patents for fear of being exploited by the “all for all” crowd.
If these patents cannot be utilized, taxpayers will also suffer. They will never enjoy the fruits of scientific developments that remain theoretical.No corporate tax is collected Its commercialization is now Harvest.
What America is facing is $34 trillion national debt, and $875.5 billion In annual debt service terms, the marginal corporate tax from these new products represents federal revenue generated by economic growth, not increased tax rates. Even the late great Milton Friedman would bless the receipt of such a tax. Assuming the current corporate tax rate of 21%, Bayh-Dole's $1.7 trillion benefit has already yielded up to $357 billion for Caesar.
Bayh-Dole said, “Probably. most inspired bill It has been enacted in the United States over the past half century. ” economist I passed out in 2002.We unlocked all the inventions and discoveries made in laboratories across the United States using taxpayer funds. More than anything, this single policy measure helped reverse America's precipitous slide into industrial irrelevance. ”
22 years later, Joe Biden is no fun. As he bans gas stoves and incandescent light bulbs, mandates electric cars, censors critics, and works to imprison opposition leaders, he increasingly resembles the late, not-so-great Latin dictator Hugo Chávez. They're starting to look alike. Giving Biden and his allies the power to destroy his patents and take them for “better uses” would endanger property rights and endanger innovation. This could cripple the conveyor belt that speeds up modern wonders across the country, from university labs to Best Buy to Walgreens to Whole Foods.
Joe Biden should peel the sticky finger off Bayh-Dole.
Deroy Murdock is a Fox News contributor based in Manhattan.
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller News Foundation.
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