A report from the Bayh-Dole Coalition, based on licensing data from the Association of University Technology Managers, estimates that the 1980 Bayh-Dole Act has contributed up to $3.3 trillion in gross economic output for the United States since 1996. That figure translates into roughly $1.7 trillion in GDP and the equivalent of 7.6 million job-years. The report highlights that from 2021 through 2025 alone, tech transfer under the framework added up to $288 billion to GDP and supported 1.08 million job-years.
The findings arrive amid ongoing policy debates over how to manage federally funded inventions. The report pushes back against recent proposals to expand march-in rights—a tool the Biden administration considered applying beyond pharmaceuticals—and a suggestion by Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick to collect royalties for the government, a stance he later retreated from. The coalition argues that the Bayh-Dole Act's decentralization of patent ownership has been a key driver of innovation and taxpayer returns.
Data in the report also show a dramatic shift in patent ownership since the law's passage. The annual number of patents on federally funded inventions has increased 70-fold, with academia now holding nearly 60% of such patents, while the government's share has fallen below 10%. Active licenses at universities and research institutes grew from about 5,000 in 1992 to more than 45,000 in 2025, though fewer than 10,000 were generating revenue—reflecting the early-stage nature of many patented discoveries and the additional investment needed to commercialize them.