By Jeff Boortz and Claude, Anthropic
While I would have called it, “How to shoot yourself in the foot and stifle a culture of innovation at the same time,” the Tomas J. Philipson commentary in today’s FORTUNE titled, “Former Trump advisor: ‘Conservatives’ risk killing America’s golden goose by taxing university research” is worth a read. Here’s the upshot:
The Bayh-Dole Act has been one of America’s most quietly consequential pieces of legislation — unlocking university discoveries and turning them into companies, jobs, and entire industries.
Now it’s under threat. Proposals from think tanks and the Department of Commerce would effectively tax university R&D licensing revenue, and some voices want to repeal Bayh-Dole altogether. Tech transfer experts are nearly unanimous: the result would be fewer startups, less innovation, and — ironically — less tax revenue.
This matters beyond universities. The inventor pipeline doesn’t just run through research institutions. Millions of independent inventors, community-based innovators, and human-AI collaborators are creating ideas that have nowhere to go.
That’s the gap HAIIC was built to fill.
We’ve already built the first tools: Brainstorm for early-stage ideation and Patent Forge for provisional patent development. Both are live today at apps-haiic.com. And a full pro se patent drafting assistant designed to guide independent inventors through the complete utility patent process is next.
As an independent, nonprofit inventor commons — structurally insulated from political winds — we exist to ensure that promising ideas find a path forward regardless of what happens to university tech transfer. With a three-way revenue split that benefits inventors, operations, and AI safety research, we’re not waiting on Bayh-Dole to survive.
The innovation infrastructure of this country deserves more than one on-ramp.
Read more about our approach at: thehumanaiinnovationcommons.com
