The University of Chicago Magazine: June 2003

GRAPHIC: Also in every issue Letters

It might sound ridiculous, but “potty parity” is an issue…

Patent profit?
In the article “An answer to the stem-cell debate?” (“Investigations,” April/03), the last paragraph states that “the research was funded by the National Institutes of Health, and Huberman and his crew have applied to patent the new technology.”

It disturbs me that the researchers would profit from a patent on work that was funded by the American taxpayers. Is this ethical? More appropriately, the American people should own the patent, since they were the ones who funded the research.

Lawrence A. Lundgren, SB’45, MBA’56
Big Horn, Wyoming

The article should have made it clear that Huberman’s group and the NIH will share profits from the patent, with funds going first to the NIH. This is in accordance with the Bayh-Dole Act passed by Congress in 1981. More information on Chicago’s technology-transfer policy is available at http://uctech.uchicago.edu/inventors/overview.shtml.—Ed.