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Better late than never?

By Lawrence B. Ebert, Esq.

On April 15, 2006, IPBiz had a post which included the text:

But patent trolls are getting a bad rap. For one thing, most U.S. research universities fit Detkin?s definition cited above. Does anyone think Stanford University deserves less patent protection than, say, Microsoft, because it doesn?t make or sell products?

On May 14, 2006, another blog [PHOSITA] noted:

Well, kudos to Lawrence Ebert at the IPBiz blog who spent some time talking about patent trolls in a recent blog post. With respect to my error, Lawrence kindly pointed to previous comments in print that suggested that Universities should/could be considered patent trolls.

On April 11, 2007, Mark Lemley had an article on SSRN: Are Universities Patent Trolls? [Stanford Public Law Working Paper No. 980776 ]

On Nov. 11, 2008, progressive states roundup cited Lemley's 2007 paper:

As universities work to patent and license their on-campus research, both to increase revenue and build job-creation strategies in surrounding communities, Stanford Professor Mark Lemley has written a paper highlighting the costs of aggressive university patenting in undermining technological innovation when they engage in exclusive licensing. His paper argues that university policies should encourage the broadest social impact, not merely the maximum licensing revenue as their goal. His paper follows on a similar study by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation.

Full post as published by IPBiz on November 14, 2008 (boomark / email).