of new medicines never make it to market. Patents help companies recoup their investment costs by bringing the sliver of new drugs that do make it across the finish line to the marketplace. Essentially, patents are the reason companies can make risky bets on potentially lifesaving cures and make investments in U.S. manufacturing that create union jobs.
But Congress passed Bayh-Dole to spur innovation, not chill it. When it went on the books in 1980, universities and other research institutions didn’t automatically retain the patent rights for their inventions that stemmed partly from federal grant funding. Instead, the federal government retained those patent rights. And it rarely licensed out patents to the private sector.
Bayh-Dole solved this problem by letting universities retain the patents to their researchers’ inventions, and license those inventions to companies that could turn them into marketable products.In the Inflation Reduction Act, a much-needed step toward lowering prescription drug costs | Editorial Even if Sen. Warren’s plan was legal, union workers would be left worse off as a result. That’s why labor leaders recentlyopposing the misuse of march-in rights and reaffirming the original meaning of Bayh-Dole.