About a month ago I was joined by Ashley Stevens, President-elect, Andy Cohn, VP for Public Policy and Vicki Loise, Executive Director in Washington, D.C. for a series of meetings. AUTM makes this annual trip early in its new leadership’s term. In 2 ½ days we met with AAMC, AAU, APLU, BIO, COGR and UIDP as well as Congressional staff from the offices of Sen. Wyden (OR), Rep. Wu (OR), Rep. Blumenauer (OR) and Rep. Baldwin (WI). The visits with congressional staff were very productive in informing decision makers about the issues surrounding technology transfer and gaining insight ourselves as to what was on the horizon. Overall, the trip was a great success. We also managed to squeeze in visits at the Center for Science Progress and NAS.
Patent Reform, the SACGHS report and bio-similars were the common themes of discussion. After our meeting with AAU I was asked to serve as co-chair of their Patent Reform Technical Advisory Committee along with Rick Brandon, University of Michigan patent council. It has been through these efforts that AUTM has a voice on the issues such as patent reform. The higher ed associations recently submitted a letter to the Senate Judiciary committee urging them to move S.515 to the floor for a vote.
We have also remained in close contact with the other higher ed associations and BIO regarding the draft SACGHS report and AUTM’s response. We look forward to attending the BIO International Convention May 18 – 21 in Atlanta, GA (be sure to stop by the AUTM booth if you’re attending).
AUTM has just recently become more involved in the activities of UIDP. Vicki Loise attended the UIDP meeting last month where they offered a demo of the first phase of TurboNegotiator. More information about this is available on the UIDP Web site, www.uidp.org.
AUTM has been working toward having a “seat at the table” with like-minded organizations, ensuring that the views and concerns of technology transfer professionals are represented. We welcome your input as we continue to foster this dialog.