"The Axios Show" exclusive: Lutnick says U.S. should take a chunk of universities' patent revenue
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After taking a stake in Intel and a cut of Nvidia's chip sales in China, the U.S. government may next target a share of the money generated by patents developed at major universities using federal funding, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick tells Mike Allen in the premiere episode of "The Axios Show."
Why it matters: The Trump administration, which has been pushing deeper into control over — and profit from — the private sector, now aims to do the same in academia, capturing potentially tens or hundreds of billions of dollars in future upside from the work of university scientists.
"The Axios Show" is our new series featuring our top reporters and experts interviewing newsmakers shaping politics, media, business, tech and culture. The debut episode, featuring our conversation with Lutnick in his Commerce Department office, will be out later this week.
The big picture: The administration has spent months pressuring colleges over admissions, DEI policies and antisemitism. Multiple university leaders have resigned; other schools have paid huge settlements.
- The next step, Lutnick says, is to guarantee the U.S. gets a share of the upside from intellectual property that scientists at those schools develop with taxpayer dollars.
Zoom in: Some of the Trump administration's deals with the private sector — a 10% stake in Intel, 15% of Nvidia's AI chip revenue in China, a "golden share" in U.S. Steel — are a stark departure from Republican orthodoxy.
- When we asked Lutnick about other types of deals that might give the U.S. a cut, he replied: "I think universities, who are getting all this money. The scientists get the patents, the universities get the patents and the funder of $50 billion, the U.S. government, you know what we get? Zero."
- "In business," he continued, "if I gave them 100% of their money, I would get half the profits, with the scientists. So I think if we fund it and they invent a patent, the United States of America taxpayer should get half the benefit."
Behind the scenes: Lutnick sent a letter to Harvard last month demanding "a comprehensive list of all patents it has received stemming from federally funded research grants."
- Lutnick told us he also intends to send a letter to the University of California system: "I think it'll be a few universities to start, and then it'll become a master deal."
Lutnick's ambitions for the arrangement aren't modest — he says with the benefit-sharing deal in place, "our Social Security system will be paid for" and deficits will be reduced or eliminated.
- "If we are paying for the research, if we're paying for the lab, if it's our money, the American taxpayer's money, the American taxpayer should be a partner in the upside," he said.
Context: The Bayh-Dole Act of 1980 lets universities retain ownership of patents achieved with federal funding. The idea was to create a clearer path for universities to do research profitably, giving them an incentive to be more aggressive about developing new medicines and technologies.
Reality check: While the University of California system and Harvard traditionally lead the patent tables among American schools, not every university benefits.
- A 2024 study found that most universities would make more money writing grants than seeking to commercialize patents, given the costs involved in the latter and the hurdles to success.
The bottom line: Lutnick isn't suggesting ending university efforts to commercialize patents — rather, he's saying the government should get half of whatever benefit they create.
- "America should participate," he said. "How do we not get our money back? That's insane."
