Last semester, BerkeleyUAEM sent a letter to Chancellor Birgeneau informing him of our group’s interests and purpose, and requesting, among other things, that UC Berkeley adopt a statement that the primary goal of the university’s Technology Licensing program is to improve global human welfare.

We receieved a reply - one we feel is excellent. It employs much of our suggested language, identifies key common goals between UCB and UAEM, announces the university’s intention to “carefully consider” UAEM’s policy proposals and indicates likely future collaboration between UAEM and the Office of Technology Licensing. The university is also changing part of the online mission statement of its intellectual property research program in accordance with one of our suggestions.

That said, there are several ways in which the Chancellor’s reply leaves room for improvement and further discussion:

1) The letter uses the language we suggested the university adopt - that for UCB’s technology licensing program, “our primary goal is to improve global human welfare.” But it is unclear whether the university has formally adopted this statement as the mission of its licensing/IP program, or is informally affirming the values we articulated.

2) The reply also employs the qualifier, “for technology and intellectual property that is relevant to global public health,” before “our primary goal is to improve global human welfare.” Our concern is that it is difficult to predict the potential end uses of newly developed technologies - a patent on a research process or compound could have significant unforeseen health benefits, and it would be unfortunate for such technologies to be licensed under agreements less favorable to concerns of access.

3) The letter leaves UAEM’s role in the development of a progressive and access-driven licensing program at UCB unclear. It states that our “proposals and tools” will be carefully considered. The Chancellor writes, “I am sure that Dr. Mimura will be communicating with you further as our plans evolve.” But there is no discussion of formally incorporating UAEM as an organization into developing UCB licensing initiatives.