PATENTS AND THE UNIVERSITY

This Article examines the intersection of patent law and academic science. It advances two novel claims about the internalization of academic science within the patent system and the concomitant evolution of “academic exceptionalism. ” Historically, relations between patent law and the university were characterized by mutual exclusion, based in part on perceived normative conflicts between academic culture and exclusive rights. These normative distinctions helped inform academic exceptionalism—the notion that the patent system should exclude the fruits of academic science or treat academic entities differently than other actors—in patent doctrine. As universities began to embrace patents and the nature of scientific research evolved, however, academic science has become internalized within the traditional commercial narrative of patent protection. Nowadays, courts frequently invoke universities ’ commercial nature Copyright © 2013 Peter Lee