Resumen de Working System II.
The article discusses how a parade of biotech heavy weights--among them Amgen, Biogen, Genzyme and, yes, Genentech--filed suits against Columbia University last year for allegedly trying to prolong for an additional 17 years what is said to be one of the most lucrative university patent estates ever. As university patenting has increased dramatically in the years since the Bayh-Dole Act of 1980, the law that encouraged such activity, academic institutions have taken a lesson or three from the corporations whose convoluted tactics keep a white-knuckled lock around valuable patents. The patent fight demonstrates that a university is as able as any corporation to do anything in its power to continue milking an intellectual-property cash cow. It enlisted Columbia alumnus Judd Gregg, now a senator from New Hampshire, to stick a provision in a few bills in 2000 that would extend its patent protection for 15 months. The almost $100 million garnered from the patents in 1999--a large chunk of the money came toward the end of the patents' term--reportedly constituted nearly 25 percent of the university's research budget.
