The federal government should receive half of the money generated from patents developed at universities with federal research funding, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said this week.
In a segment of a soon-to-be aired interview with Axios, Lutnick said that taxpayers deserve a direct financial return when tax dollar-funded research leads to lucrative inventions.
“The scientists get the patents. The universities get the patents. And the funder of $50 billion—the U.S. government—you know what we get? Zero,” the secretary said in the clip published on Sept. 10.
“In business, if I gave them 100 percent of their money, I would get half the profits, with the scientists. I think, if we fund it and they invent a patent, the United States of America taxpayer should get half the benefit.”…