Legislature(2003 - 2004)
03/03/2004 01:38 PM Senate HES
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* first hearing in first committee of referral
+ teleconferenced
= bill was previously heard/scheduled
+ teleconferenced
= bill was previously heard/scheduled
HB 282-UNIVERSITY EMPLOYEE RESEARCH CONTRACTS
MR. JIM POUND, Chief of Staff for Representative Hugh Fate,
provided the following sponsor statement on behalf of the bill's
sponsor:
HB 282 is language that will allow our university to
compete in the research and development area. Across
the nation, universities have moved toward a research
role as a way of supplementing the high cost of
education. This valuable research has been
responsible for inventions and innovations that have
moved into the private sector and ultimately made a
profit. Our university system is involved in research
but seldom development because of a lack of financial
incentives based on Alaska's Executive Branch Ethics
Act.
In particular:
AS 39.52.010. Declaration of policy, [(a)(2)](A)
discourage those officers from acting upon personal or
financial interests in the performance of their public
responsibilities;
AS 39.52.170. Outside employment restricted. (a) A
public employee may not render services to benefit a
personal or financial interest or engage in or accept
employment outside the agency, which the employee
serves...
HB 282 will give the president of the university a
recruiting tool that he currently does not have. He,
or in the future, she will be able to negotiate an
intellectual property agreement with a researcher who
could then develop a product that is commercially
viable. Based on those negotiations, the researcher
and the university could both financially benefit from
that commercial enterprise through sale,
entrepreneurial activities - or better yet - the
development of a new industry in the state.
The agreement would allow the researcher to continue
advancing the work, which helps maintain staff
stability at the university. With the passage of HB
282 we will be able to open a new door, one that could
mean a quality staff working on projects that could
bring new ideas, industry and additional non-general
fund dollars to the University of Alaska.
CHAIR DYSON asked how this might negatively or positively affect
education. He referenced paragraph two of the sponsor statement
that states, "Nearly 57 percent of all research conducted in
Alaska is on one of the University's campuses." He wondered,
"How the heck would you know that?"
MR. POUND responded that these numbers were from the University
[of Alaska]; this was from a recent audit done on the university
- from the web page.
CHAIR DYSON said he questions how "all the research going on" is
known, particularly research that is not government-related.
SENATOR GREEN commented that she wasn't terribly comfortable and
suggested that perhaps this was because of the open language
regarding contracts, or that "the development of intellectual
property" had a meaning that she didn't know about, or perhaps
it had to do with the product, or the use of university
facilities. She commented that a person has the ability to use
university facilities for personal gain without the university
being the beneficiary.
CHAIR DYSON explained what he thought this accomplishes. He
said in the engineering profession, it's very common for the
terms of an employer to indicate that "any patents or copyrights
that you come up with during the term of your employment that
are in any way related to your job, become the property of your
employer."
SENATOR GREEN said she was working from that premise.
CHAIR DYSON continued that he suspected that if the university
wanted to recruit someone very talented in a particular area,
the person would say, "I'd like to be working in your facility
and I'd like to be teaching at your campus, but here's the deal.
A whole bunch of what I've been working on and thinking about is
liable to result in something that would be very valuable to
either publish or develop commercially. Can we work out a deal
so that I can do research and conduct a teaching that will be
valuable to education and the university's mission and still not
preclude myself from making money off of stuff I've already been
working on and would probably be continuing to work around." He
said this legislation allows the administration to then say,
"All right. Let's pre-agree on something here in the form of a
contract to do that." He asked if this was correct.
MR. POUND responded this was correct. He said the other side of
this is that there is research and development at university
campuses and it gets to a point where there's a better deal at
another university or somewhere else and a person takes his/her
research, goes to another university, and negotiates a contract
for intellectual property. That has happened.
CHAIR DYSON asked if under existing law, the University [of
Alaska] and faculty members are currently unable to work out a
mutually acceptable agreement.
MR. POUND said this was correct because the university's faculty
and researchers are under the [Alaska Executive Branch] Ethics
Act.
SENATOR GREEN commented that currently there is no prohibition
for the individual to leave with the information and the
property of the university.
MR. POUND said he understood that this is how it currently
works. An individual has the ability to take that information
with him/her.
SENATOR GREEN said, "I think they would still have that, even
with this."
MR. POUND offered that there would be an incentive to remain and
continue to publish, copyright, and patent at the university as
opposed to going somewhere else. He added that this was fairly
common even at state schools. He referred to information in the
committee packet and noted that "intellectual property is now
being used."
SENATOR GREEN asked if anybody else would be testifying today.
CHAIR DYSON indicated that there was no further testimony. He
said he would hold the bill over if she'd like.
SENATOR GREEN said she'd appreciate that.
CHAIR DYSON commented that the back-up materials on HB 282 were
good. He said the bill would be scheduled for Monday [3/8/04]
unless Senator Green needed additional time.
There being no further business to come before the committee,
CHAIR DYSON adjourned the Senate Health, Education and Social
Services Standing committee meeting at 1:59 p.m.
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