Norman Latker was the patent counsel for the National Institutes of Health from the 1960's through 1979. Latker became aware that under prevailing patent policies of the time taking ownership of NIH funded inventions away from the inventing universities and investing them in the federal government that few, if any, were being commercialized. He became convinced that a new policy was needed to secure a better return on taxpayer funded R&D, and began working with university experts in developing a revolutionary new approach called the Institutional Patent Agreements (IPA) program. Under the IPA, universities with a demonstrated capability of managing their inventions were allowed to retain patent ownership. The program was so successful at NIH that it was adopted by the National Science Foundation.

During the Carter Administration, Joseph Califano (then Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare) decided to end the IPA because of his belief that publicly financed inventions should be freely available to all. It was this action which led Senators Bayh and Dole to introduce legislation giving the IPA program a statutory basis which could not be abolished at the whim of the bureaucracy. Convinced that Latker was backing this legislative effort, Sec. Califano sought to terminate Latker's position.

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The Collection

•      Norman J. Latker - Letter and Memos



•      Norman J. Latker - Notes



•      Norman J. Latker - News and Articles



•      Norman J. Latker - Statements and Reports



•      Norman J. Latker - Legislation



•      Norman J. Latker - Supporting Documents



•      Norman J. Latker - Early and Contemporaneous Papers Supporting University Patenting

This project has the support of The Association of University Technology Managers and is a companion site to: Bayh-Dole 30 , a site that provides links to articles and videos on the Act, its history, current news and more. The site includes examples of technologies and products that originated from federally funded university discoveries.