Reporting Requirements For Federally Sponsored Inventions Need: Fill & Download for Free

Your question carries with it a couple of assumptions worth pointing out. These assumptions make it difficult to answer with “yes” or “no.”Consider first that ownership of inventions generally vests initially with inventors, not with sponsors of research or with universities that release investigators to work on extramural projects. Similarly, copyrights vest with authors. Shouldn’t investigators, inventors, and authors have some say in how their work is “controlled”? Neither the sponsors nor the university administrators have a basis for a meaningful claim to control—even though both have leverage to make a claim.Vannevar Bush, who led the effort to get the federal government involved in funding basic research at universities, argued in Science the Endless Frontier that the federal government needed only a non-exclusive license to inventions made in federally funded, university-hosted basic research. According to Bush, science advances at its frontiers through the “free play of free intellects.” Sort of hard for that to happen if either the government or university administrators “control” the key things those free intellects do.We could take things a step further. What general property qualifies either a funding source or university administrators to manage all discoveries, inventions, and works of authorship created in research? Is it their money? Their administrative power? Really? For that matter, if one is determined not to allow inventors and authors to have any rights in their work, then why not designate a competent, motivated organization to control those rights? If the research involves a particular area of medicine, for instance, why not dedicate any inventions to a patient/survivor organization to control? Or to a professional group? Or to an industry standards organization? Surely there are more interesting alternatives than university administrators or wealthy sponsors.Second, there’s an assumption that all sponsored research is essentially the same, and that is not the case. Sponsored research varies by the circumstances, the individuals, and the purposes. There may be background rights (controlled by the investigators, or by the sponsor, or by another party), or there may be rights in specified deliverables, rights in ancillary work that’s not anticipated, rights in applications of results, rights in realizations about entirely different lines of investigation, rights in research tools having general utility. Some researchers come in with IP in hand, and are funded to extend that IP. Should they have to give up the IP they have? Should they give over improvements to that IP only to see that they have blocked their own future work by handing over IP to a sponsor or to university administrators?Or, why should anyone control inventions and works of authorship if the purpose of the research is to enlarge the public domain and make discoveries and work product available to all? What about research that’s distributed to multiple investigators with the intent of combining it all into a new technology platform? Why should each university get to patent its tiny bit of the whole and hold out on everyone else for royalties? Why shouldn’t everyone contribute to the platform and STFU about private claims to control? If they don’t like the deal, then don’t take the money in the first place.Neither sponsors nor university administrators, in general, should have some arbitrary policy right to control IP arising in research they sponsor or host. At best, they should negotiate for the rights they desire. A sponsor that aims to procure research results to use in its work is justified in seeking inventions, software, data, and documentation as deliverables—and may even expect ownership, as it would in working with a contract research organization. A sponsor that wants to see an investigator study something curious and publish a report of findings might need no rights in the results whatsoever—and may even negotiate to prevent a host institution from playing the IP vampire on the results. A sponsor that wants research results to stimulate regional economic development may not care who owns or controls resulting IP so long as an effort is made to make the IP available to companies in the region of interest for use and development.Perhaps this discussion is sufficient to indicate that any answer to the original question is bound to be arbitrary and rather useless—even as such useless, inequitable arbitrariness appeals to many university administrators.In all of this, the people most often left out of the discussion are the “principal investigators”—the university faculty members who have the ideas and propose the research for sponsored funding. These folks, too, do not have any monolithic purpose. Some want no ownership positions to be taken, some want to start venture-backed companies, some are fine contributing their work to a sponsor’s efforts, some want to participate in open innovation or standards development, and some are fine with a “technology transfer” organization patenting an invention and attempting to find a company to who wants to create commercial products.In my experience, this diversity of purposes is exciting and increases the range of possible activities arising from university research. Where the primary purpose of research is exploration rather than mission-directed problem solving for a money master, introducing volatility is a good thing—even if many university administrators hate it because it involves personal judgment other than their own.If sponsors wanted to do one thing to improve the conditions for university-hosted research, they would insist in their funding agreements that university administrators keep their thumbs out of the ownership of any IP resulting from the research they sponsor. In fact, this is the case with the standard funding agreement authorized by the Bayh-Dole Act for federally supported research. That’s the effect of the written agreement by inventors requirement at 37 CFR 401.14(a)(f)(2)—which requires university administrators to require potential inventors to make a written agreement to protect the federal government’s interest in inventions made with federal support. But university administrators thumb their noses at the requirement and fail to comply, instead claiming ownership of everything that can be owned and (for the sake of completeness) most everything that can’t be owned, too.Perhaps sponsors of research at universities should follow the same approach—insist that investigators control the IP in their projects and negotiate a non-exclusive license in specified deliverables from the inventors and authors. This approach would respect academic freedom and freedom of research and publication, provide the sponsor with access to desired deliverables, and keep predatory university administrators out of the picture, and increase the range of choices available to investigators based on their circumstances and purposes.

In the earliest days of telephone technology, prior to the development of the rotary dial telephone, all telephone calls were operator-assisted. To place a call, the caller was required to pick up the telephone receiver, sometimes turn a magneto crank, and wait for the telephone operator to answer. The caller would then ask to be connected to the number they wished to call, and the operator would make the required connection manually, by means of a switchboard.In an emergency, the caller might simply say "Get me the police", "I want to report a fire", or "I need an ambulance or doctor". Until dial service came into use, one could not place calls without proper operator assistance.The first known use of a national emergency telephone number began in the United Kingdom in 1937, using the number 999, which continues to this day.In the United States, the push for the development of a nationwide American emergency telephone number came in 1957 when the National Association of Fire Chiefs recommended that a single number be used for reporting fires. The first city in North America to use a central emergency number was the Canadian city of Winnipeg, Manitoba in 1959, which instituted the change at the urging of Stephen Juba, mayor of Winnipeg at the time. Winnipeg initially used 999 as the emergency number, but switched numbers when 9-1-1 was proposed by the United States. In 1967, the President's Commission on Law Enforcement and Administration of Justice recommended the creation of a single number that could be used nationwide for reporting emergencies. The Federal Communications Commission then met with AT&T in November 1967 in order to choose the number.In 1968, the number was agreed upon. AT&T chose the number 9-1-1, which was simple, easy to remember, dialed easily, and because of the middle 1, indicating a special number (see also 4-1-1 and 6-1-1) worked well with the phone systems in place at the time (which 999 would not). At the time, this announcement only affected the Bell System telephone companies; independent phone companies were not included in the emergency telephone plan. However, Bob Gallagher of the Alabama Telephone Company decided he wanted to implement it ahead of AT&T, and the company chose Haleyville, Alabama, as the location.On February 16, 1968, Alabama Speaker of the House Rankin Fite placed the first-ever 9-1-1 call from Haleyville City Hall, to Congressman Tom Bevill, at the city's police station. Bevill was accompanied by Gallagher and Alabama Public Service Commission director Eugene "Bull" Connor. The phone used to answer the first 9-1-1 call, a bright red model, is now in a museum in Haleyville, while a duplicate phone is still in use at the police station.AT&T made its first implementation in Huntington, Indiana, the hometown of J. Edward Roush, who sponsored the federal legislation to establish the nationwide system, on March 1, 1968. However, the spread of 9-1-1 implementation took many years. For example, although the City of Chicago, Illinois, had access to 9-1-1 service as early as 1976, the Illinois Commerce Commission did not authorize telephone service provider Illinois Bell to offer 9-1-1 to the Chicago suburbs until 1981.[11] Implementation was not immediate even then; by 1984, only eight Chicago suburbs in Cook County had 9-1-1 service. As late as 1989, at least 28 Chicago suburbs still lacked 9-1-1 service; some of those towns had previously elected to decline 9-1-1 service due to costs and—according to emergency response personnel—failure to recognize the benefits of the 9-1-1 system. By 1979, 26% of the U.S. population could dial the number. This increased to 50% by 1987 and 93% by 2000. As of December 2017, 98.9% of the U.S. population has access.follow link to full9-1-1 - Wikipedia

I have a counter question…Will humanity support a change for media to “serve and improve humanity”…Neither is a likely outcome for the simple reason.Media is corporate interests and corporate interest is the bottom $ and not “humanity” . Media is not altruistic and today even less so than yesterday. If money followed the desire to “improve humanity” then media would alter a business model.Corporations have been given permission by you and the Supreme Court as Personhood..Humanity?When Did Companies Become People? Excavating The Legal EvolutionAre corporations people? The U.S. Supreme Court says they are, at least for some purposes. And in the past four years, the high court has dramatically expanded corporate rights.It ruled that corporations have the right to spend money in candidate elections, and that some for-profit corporations may, on religious grounds, refuse to comply with a federal mandate to cover birth control in their employee health plans.These are personal rights accorded to corporations. To many, the concept of corporations as people seems odd, to say the least. But it is not new.The dictionary defines "corporation" as "a number of persons united in one body for a purpose." Corporate entities date back to medieval times, observes Columbia law professor John Coffee, an authority on corporate law. "You could think of the Catholic Church as probably the first entity that could buy and sell property in its own name," he says.Indeed, having an artificial legal persona was especially important to churches, says Elizabeth Pollman, an associate professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles."Having a corporation would allow people to put property into a collective ownership that could be held with perpetual existence," she says. "So it wouldn't be tied to any one person's lifespan, or subject necessarily to laws regarding inheriting property."Article continues after sponsor messageLater on, in the United States and elsewhere, the advantages of incorporation were essential to efficient and secure economic development. Unlike partnerships, the corporation continued to exist even if a partner died; there was no unanimity required to do something; shareholders could not be sued individually, only the corporation as a whole, so investors only risked as much as they put into buying shares.By the 1800s, the process of incorporating became relatively simple. But corporations aren't mentioned anywhere in the Constitution, leaving the courts to determine what rights corporations have — and which corporations have them. After all, Coca-Cola is a corporation, but so are the NAACP and the National Rifle Association, and so are small churches and local nonprofits."All these truly different types of organizations might come under the label 'corporation,' " Pollman observes. "And so the real difficulty is figuring out how to treat these different things under the Constitution."In the early years of the republic, the only right given to corporations was the right to have their contracts respected by the government, according to legal historian Eben Moglen.The great industrialization of the United States in the 1800s, however, intensified companies' need to raise money."With the invention of the railroad, you needed a great deal of capital to exploit its purpose, " Columbia professor Coffee says, "and only the corporate form offered limited liability, easy transferability of shares, and continued, perpetual existence."In addition, the end of the Civil War and the adoption of the 14th Amendment provided an opportunity for corporations to seek further legal protection, says Moglen, also a Columbia University professor."From the moment the 14th Amendment was passed in 1868, lawyers for corporations — particularly railroad companies — wanted to use that 14th Amendment guarantee of equal protection to make sure that the states didn't unequally treat corporations," Moglen says.Nobody was talking about extending to corporations the right of free speech back then. What the railroads sought was equal treatment under state tax laws and things like that.The Supreme Court extended that protection to corporations, and over time also extended some — but not all — of the rights guaranteed to individuals in the Bill of Rights. The court ruled that corporations don't have a right against self-incrimination, for instance, but are protected by the ban on warrantless search and seizure.Otherwise, as the Cato Institute's Ilya Shapiro puts it, "the police could storm down the doors of some company and take all their computers and their files."But for 100 years, corporations were not given any constitutional right of political speech; in fact, quite the contrary. In 1907, following a corporate corruption scandal involving prior presidential campaigns, Congress passed a law banning corporate involvement in federal election campaigns. That wall held firm for 70 years.The first crack came in a case that involved neither candidate elections nor federal law. In 1978 a sharply divided Supreme Court ruled for the first time that corporations have a First Amendment right to spend money on state ballot initiatives.Still, for decades, candidate elections remained free of direct corporate influence under federal law. Only money from individuals and groups of individuals — political action committees — were permitted in federal elections.Then came Citizens United, the Supreme Court's 5-4 First Amendment decision in 2010 that extended to corporations for the first time full rights to spend money as they wish in candidate elections — federal, state and local. The decision reversed a century of legal understanding, unleashed a flood of campaign cash and created a crescendo of controversy that continues to build today.It thrilled many in the business community, horrified campaign reformers, and provoked considerable mockery in the comedian classes.The Daily ShowGet More: Daily Show Full Episodes,The Daily Show on Facebook,Daily Show Video Archive"If only there were some way to prove that corporations were not people," lamented the Daily Show's Jon Stewart. Maybe, he mused, we could show "their inability to love."The Colbert ReportGet More: Colbert Report Full Episodes,The Colbert Report on Facebook,Video ArchiveFellow Comedy Central comedian Stephen Colbert tried unsuccessfully to get the question of corporate personhood on the South Carolina ballot, and also formed a superPAC, which asked whether voters would be comfortable letting Mitt Romney date their daughters' corporations.But there are serious people on both sides of this issue.Cato's Shapiro sees all corporations, when they spend on political campaigns, as merely associations of like-minded people."Nobody is saying that corporations are living, breathing entities, or that they have souls or anything like that," he says. "This is about protecting the rights of the individuals that associate in this way."Countering that argument are those who note that individuals are perfectly free to give money to candidates with whom they agree, and to spend unlimited amounts independently supporting those candidates. They shouldn't need a corporation to express themselves, the argument goes.Some critics, like Pollman, see a difference between for-profit and nonprofit corporations. A nonprofit corporation formed to advance particular political views is one thing, she says. A large for-profit corporation is something else entirely."There's no reason to believe that the people involved — shareholders, employees, even the directors or managers — have come together for an expressive purpose related to anything other than really what the business is doing," she argues.And shareholders and employees, Pollman observes, have no real recourse if they disagree with how corporate money is spent in campaigns.And then there is the money-is-not-speech argument. The problem for First Amendment believers, Moglen says, arises not because they think corporations shouldn't have rights so much as they think money isn't equal to speech."And we are now winding up using constitutional rules to concentrate corporate power in a way that's dangerous to democracy," he says.That, of course, is not how the Supreme Court majority sees its decision. The court has said that because speech is an essential mechanism of democracy, the First Amendment forbids discrimination against any class of speaker.It matters not, the court said just this year, that some speakers, because of the money they spend on elections, may have undue influence on public policy; what is important is that the First Amendment protects both speech and speaker, and the ideas that flow from each.