Universities Petition Supreme Court to Reverse Ruling That Could Cost Them Patent Rights

The American Council on Education and more than a dozen research universities and organizations have asked the U.S. Supreme Court to take up the patent case in which Stanford University lost ownership of a series of patents because one of the university-employed inventors had assigned his ownership rights to a company as part of a consulting agreement.  In their brief to the court, the universities and organizations contend that letting stand a federal-appeals court ruling that grants ownership to the company, Roche Molecular Systems, will “cloud universities’ title to thousands of federally funded inventions, contrary to Congress’s intent and the public interest.”