Betsy Ancker-Johnson

In the mid-1970s, Betsy Ancker-Johnson, an experimental physicist then serving as assistant secretary for science and technology at the U.S. Department of Commerce, played a crucial role in promoting more effective technology transfer policies. These first efforts came in the form of encouraging individual agencies to negotiate Institutional Patent Agreements (IPAs) with universities to encourage effective technology transfer. Ancker later encouraged Norman J. Latker, the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare’s chief patent counsel at the time, to convene the University Patent Policy Ad Hoc Committee of the Committee on U.S. Government Patent Policy for the Federal Council on Science and Technology. As chair of that committee, Latker sought to negotiate a uniform, government-wide IPA for universities. Agencies could opt in and use the agreement, unless they believed existing statutes precluded its use (or its terms). The discussions that accompanied these efforts heavily influenced the later development of the Bayh-Dole approach to technology transfer.