[Vigilanteman]

I wouldn't be so sure. The university which my Dad retired from signed over a lifesaving drug (for calves)which he had developed as part of his package. Their reasoning: If they successfully commercialized the formula, the state would just cut their appropriation.

As for THC, heavy duty jogging will produce THC naturally in the body. That's a lot cheaper way than growing a THC producing orange tree.

[Philo1962]

Their reasoning: If they successfully commercialized the formula, the state would just cut their appropriation.

Different states, and even different universities within each state, might reason differently on such matters. At the University of Wisconsin at Madison, they have an alumni group with full-time patent agents on the payroll, filing patent applications on behalf of the university. They're awarded about 70 patents in a typical year.

Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation

As you can see from reading the story, even 77 patents in 2005 ranks them as only the fifth most productive university in the United States in acquiring patents: "Listed ahead of UW-Madison were the 10 campuses of the University of California System, with 390 patents; the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, with 136 patents; the California Institute of Technology, with 101 patents; and Stanford University and the University of Texas, which tied for fourth with 90 patents each."