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December 1980 was a watermark for American university technology transfer. The events of that month changed expectations about the commercialization of academic discoveries and set in motion new institutional policies and cultural changes that are still ongoing and unresolved. On December 2, 1980, the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) issued a patent to Stanford University entitled Process for Producing Biologically Functional Chimeras (#4237224). The patent covered the recombinant DNA (rDNA) technique developed by Dr. Stanley Cohen of Stanford University, California and Dr. Herbert Boyer of the University of California, San Francisco. At the time it was unusual for patents to be issued to a university discovery under research funded by the federal government. Indeed, the practice was for any intellectual property right to revert back to the federal government with each university able …