IP Hall of Fame Academy members
The IP Hall of Fame Academy comprises previous, living inductees into the IP Hall of Fame, the panellists from the 2006 IP Hall of Fame induction process and individuals who have been put forward for membership as a consequence of their acknowledged expertise in international intellectual property issues. Moving forward, people will qualify for Academy membership only if they are inducted into the IP Hall of Fame or if their names are submitted for consideration by an existing member.
The role of Academy members is to select IP Hall of Fame inductees from the nominations made by the global IP community.
Current members are (click on name for more information):
Birch Bayh
Former US Senator, co-sponsor of the pivotal Bayh-Dole Act 1980IP Hall of Fame inductee in 2006
A Democratic senator from Indiana from 1963 to 1981, Birch Bayh was a co-author of the Bayh-Dole Act of 1980. This piece of legislation allowed US universities and non-profit organisations to own and commercialise inventions that were created with federal funding. As a result, universities became much more active in patenting their inventions and transferring their IP to the private sector for commercialisation through licence agreements and other forms of technology transfer. The Economist said that: "The Bayh-Dole Act of 1980 is perhaps the most inspired piece of legislation to be enacted in America over the past half-century... More than anything, this single policy measure helped to reverse America's precipitous slide into industrial irrelevance."