At the Chronicle of Higher Education website, Paul Basken reports that new rules will be published in the Federal Register concerning corporate ties of researchers and required disclosures relating thereto. In a nutshell:

The final form of the changes falls short of some of the more aggressive regulations suggested by Dr. Collins and the NIH. In particular, the rules do not require universities to post online details of the specific financial conflicts involving their scientists. Instead, universities are required only to respond to individual requests for such information. And, despite the fact that the rule-making process was halted a year ago following revelations that a prominent psychiatrist had escaped NIH sanctions by moving to a new university, the final language does nothing new to specifically prevent such a maneuver. 

On July 29, 2011, a Federal Circuit panel decided Association For Molecular Pathology v. Myriad Genetics (Fed. Cir. 2011). This is an important case for patent law, as it relates to genetics. The short version is that: (i) isolated DNA is eligible for patent protection; (ii) claims directed to working with the isolated DNA, in non-specific ways, are not eligible for patent; and (iii) a claim directed to a specific method of using the isolated DNA for cancer screening is eligible for patent. It should be kept in mind that “eligible for patent” is not the same as “patentable,” and the isolated DNA and cancer screening method must still be sufficiently new and creative to sustain a valid. This decision is reported more fully in a Bond, Schoeneck & King Information Memo. One interesting aspect is that people who work for universities appear on both sides. This is a nice thing about patent law, generally, and it is something that carries over into the slice of patent law dominated by research universities – there is not really a “Patent Plaintiff’s Bar” and a “Patent Defendant’s Bar.” Patents are a double edged sword, and a research university could find itself on either side of a given patent, for or against. This really brings some balance, nuance and moderated synthesis to patent law that one doesn’t always find in other areas of the law. The Association For Molecular Pathology case is a good example of this, whether or not one agrees with where exactly the Federal Circuit has drawn the line on the patent-eligibility of DNA and its associated scientific and medical methods.

At Inside Higher Ed, Paula M. Krebs writes:

The institution to which I was attached, the five-campus University of Massachusetts system, understands its role in its state and region in terms inherited from the Morrill Act of 1862, which established the land-grant colleges and their obligation to train state residents in new techniques of agriculture. The current manifestation of the Morrill Act would seem to be in the university’s commitment to commercial ventures, patents, and intellectual property, helping to start and support new businesses that grow out of research done on campus.

Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.