Roche prevails in Bayh-Dole case

The Bayh-Dole Act does not automatically grant ownership of federally funded research to universities, according to a 7-2 decision by the U.S. Supreme Court in Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University v. Roche Molecular Systems Inc. et al. Rather, rights to inventions belong to the inventor, and the act assures universities "that they may keep title to whatever it is they already have." The court also noted that universities typically enter into agreements with employees requiring the assignment of inventions to the university, and a properly drafted and executed agreement would have resulted in Stanford's ownership of the disputed inventions. ...