> I, for one, believe that we should enact stronger protections to ensure that research partially performed at publicly-funded labs remains in the hands of the public.
I agree!
> In particular, I think that the Bayh–Dole Act should be strengthened to vest the patent with the institution directly, and to create a default presumption that the institution owns the IP.
That is not the same thing though. The universities have historically been very exclusive about who can license their patent portfolios, and at high cost. They're the same as a business in that respect.
I once looked into licensing some software from an English university. At the very beginning of the discussion, I was read a long list of domains where the software had already been exclusively licensed. Great! We didn't fall into any of those domains, next question. It turned out I had misunderstood, the list was for domains where THEY thought the software should be each exclusively licensed to a third party.
There were other factors, but it became clear it wasn't worth the effort trying to license from the university.
I agree!
> In particular, I think that the Bayh–Dole Act should be strengthened to vest the patent with the institution directly, and to create a default presumption that the institution owns the IP.
That is not the same thing though. The universities have historically been very exclusive about who can license their patent portfolios, and at high cost. They're the same as a business in that respect.