The Supreme Court Interprets the Bayh-Dole Act as Not Automatically Conveying Inventions to Contractors

Yesterday, the Supreme Court issued its second patent related decision of the term in The Board of Trustees of Leland Stanford Junior University v. Roche Molecular Systems, 09-1159, a case addressing the issue of ownership of inventions made with government research funding. A 7-2 majority of the Court, lead by Chief J. Roberts, held that the Bayh-Dole act does not alter the fundamental proposition that ownership of an invention initially vests with an inventor, and as such, title does not automatically vest in a contractor, such as a university, when an invention is made with the support of federal funding.

This case involved competing agreements with an inventor: an agreement between the inventor and the university in which the inventor “agrees to assign” later made inventions and a second agreement with Roche in which the inventor immediately assigned a specific invention.

The “agree to assign” language did not operate as an immediate conveyance and the Supreme Court held that the "Bayh-Dole act does not automatically vest title to federally funded inventions in federal contractors or authorize contractors to unilaterally take title to such inventions."  As a result, Stanford was out of luck.


One significant take-away from this decision is that recipients of federal research funding cannot rely solely on the Bayh-Dole act and should review the language in employee and research agreements with respect to assignment of future inventions. Language in these agreements that impose an obligation in the future, such as "agrees to assign," should be replaced with affirmative language, such as "hereby does assign."