The question of the commercialization of intellectual property in universities has recently gained exposure in various contexts. A public committee that dealt with the issue, headed by Prof. Hanoch Gutfreund, published its recommendations and from them it appears that its members see the commercialization and transfer of knowledge with commercial and applied potential from the Academy of Industry as part of the university's tasks
By: Eliyahu Jarbi
The question of the commercialization of intellectual property in universities has recently gained exposure in various contexts. A public committee that dealt with the issue, chaired by Prof. Hanoch Gutfreund, published its recommendations and from them it appears that its members see the commercialization and transfer of knowledge with commercial and applied potential from the Academy of Industry as part of the university's tasks, alongside teaching and research. At the same time, a bill was submitted to the Knesset, which also applies to research universities, "to encourage the transfer of knowledge and technology from governmental and public research bodies and institutions to the private sector for the public benefit." The principles of the proposal even began to be reflected in drafts of new intellectual property regulations in some universities.
In all of these, the record left by the exceptional achievements of some entrepreneurs from the academy during the days of the "high-tech bubble" is evident on the trend now dictated to all members of the academic staff. The universities are now forced to turn even more strongly to the technology trading arena, in a further effort to improve the state of their depleted budgets. This approach may indeed bear fruit under suitable conditions, but on the other hand, there are also serious dangers hidden in it, including the fear of harming the basics of academic freedom in research universities.
Academic freedom is the lifeblood of a free university. It is expressed in the personal freedom granted to all members of the academic staff to publish their scientific works without administrative restriction. In this way the broad recognition is realized according to which the knowledge created in a public university is in the public domain and it is its free distribution that enables its continued development and promotion for the benefit of the public.
On the other hand, the aforementioned draft bill imposes obligations on the research universities to report on "knowledge products" that have some element of commercial potential and to maintain their confidentiality. These duties will apply both at the institutional level and at the personal level, and hence academic faculty members will be deprived of the personal authority to decide whether to publish their scientific works publicly or to follow the paths of intellectual property and commercialization. Thus, for example, the bill imposes personal and professional restrictions on these researchers and their students, the violation of which would be considered an offense against the law. It imposes on them obligations to comply with administrative instructions, such as a possible requirement to transfer knowledge to business companies, even if they do not wish to commercialize their inventions. In all of these there is a real violation of the principle of academic freedom in research universities.
The bill, in its attempt to resemble the American Bayh-Dole law, supposedly grants universities exclusive ownership of all knowledge products arising from the current or research activities of their faculty members, along with an administrative obligation to trade them properly according to law. In its Israeli form, it will be "property reserved for the detriment of its owners", since already today many patents have accumulated in the implementing bodies of universities in Israel that do not receive proper management.
The extent of the limited ability of the implementation bodies in the universities to act to exploit the intellectual property entrusted to them is the main factor that determines the extent of the efficiency of the transfer of knowledge from academia to industry. Therefore, the continued existence of alternative channels for the independent commercialization of inventions by their inventors serves the good of the general public, provided that fair compensation is transferred to the parent university after the fact. Unnecessary interference by the legislator and new bureaucratic regulations that will be derived from it will burden the natural creation process of intellectual property at the university and harm its inventive, entrepreneurial and achievement nature. Instead of encouragement and support, they will add prevention and deterrence mechanisms to the academic system, which will also harm other - even more essential - processes of transferring knowledge from the academy to society.
Israeli universities have made a considerable contribution to intellectual life and society, to medicine, to the economy and to security - thanks to academic freedom. The fertilization that Israeli academia has brought to society in Israel and around the world was realized through generations of excellent students who were trained in their professions, in scientific research published by it for the common good, as well as in the free personal involvement of the members of the academic staff in all systems of society. All of these may now be bound by legal restrictions, in an approach that will require, according to state law, to treat all "knowledge products" in universities from the outset as tradable intellectual property, whose circulation must be limited in order to increase its price. This fundamentally wrong approach will also erode the basis of the broad public support essential to the very existence of the research universities, and will end up paying off in its loss.
* The author is an associate professor at the Faculty of Engineering of Tel Aviv University
