In recent decades, universities have expanded their efforts to patent academic research. It’s not exactly clear, however, who licenses or buys university patents and how they get used.
In 2007, several universities signed a statement promising to be mindful of public interests when licensing or selling their patents. The signatories, including Stanford, MIT, Harvard and the University of California, agreed that public interests wouldn’t be served by turning over patents to companies who “rely primarily on threats of infringement litigation to generate revenue.” In other words, it was conceded that patents shouldn’t be given away to patent trolls. Unfortunately, not all universities have kept their promise.