Someday the media will get it right. Recently Technology Review magazine ranked the top 50 universities on the amount of patents and innovations they introduced into the technological and medical world. All the big names showed up - MIT, the University of Rochester, Carnegie Mellon and the University of California system. But the University of Virginia didn't make the list.
Rankings like these constantly circulate in the nation's media circles, rankings that give the misleading impression that perhaps the University isn't as technology savvy as the rest of the country. Statistics such as these are deceptive because they rarely cover all the innovations researchers make every day.
Still, numbers don't lie. Data collected from CHI Research, a consultant firm that compiles scientific and technological indicators, revealed that the University, with only 14 patents, came in at number 82. It seems to tell us the blunt truth, that the University is falling behind top-flight universities who are currently pushing anti-cancer drugs and Internet innovations, all while raking in enormous profits from patent royalties.
Robert F. "Chip" German, University Office of Information Technology and Communication director of policy and planning, argues that rankings like these disproportionately place emphasis on patent quantity over quality and that they don't consider non-proprietary, open to the public research.
"A lot of what we contribute comes from an open environment. It's not proprietary. None of what we do is lock-down," German said.
However, CHI Research President Dr. Frances Naran disputes this, saying their findings also factored the technological strength of the product by examining the impact the particular patent had on the community.
Rankings generally recognize the work of University researchers like Professor John C. Herr, who's filed for 30 patents for research done on male fertility tests and other projects at the University Center for Recombinant Gamete Contraceptive Vaccinogens. However, they often ignore many others who have not filed for patents through the University Patent Foundation.
The flaw in the study was not the idea that they counted patents to rank universities. Rather, it's the fact that they only factored in research that the University was able to monetarily capitalize on, while ignoring scientific innovations that have become common knowledge.
Patents protect the rights and reward the efforts of researchers. Yet statisticians like CHI Research often overlook discoveries that cannot be bought and sold as a product. As a result, they've ignored significant research at the University that demonstrates our technological creativity.
They are forgetting people like Dr. Gene Sullivan, who is saving lives using his telemedicine system. With his invention, patients use live video at their physician's office to speak to a specialty physician at the University Medical Center over the Internet to receive diagnosis, treatment and even surgery.
So far, his project has benefited 2,100 individuals, and because his work has not been patented, it is spreading quickly to other hospitals.
"We didn't need a patent. We just bought a computer and all the necessary materials, and got a few smart guys to put it together. With a patent, it kind of closes people off for use by others," Sullivan said.
The patent rankings also ignore the application of technology to the humanities, such as in the case of David Seaman's work on e-text. This system was introduced at the University in 1992 as a way to provide old and deteriorating texts a chance to be enjoyed by future generations via publication over the Internet.
"People all over the world can access the texts. We had someone from Japan use e-text. Kids in middle school are able to read and research these texts off the Internet," said Melissa Norris, University library head of public relations.
And finally, they are forgetting English Professor John Unsworth's work with the Institute for the Advancement of Technology in the Humanities, or IATH. This project-driven initiative has earned the University an international reputation for applying technology where people would never think to apply it.
"It's become a premier center to focus on technology in the humanities," Martha Blodgett, a University associate librarian said.
The idea of counting issued patents to universities doesn't really show how diligent or successful professors are in making medical or technological breakthroughs. Professors without patents shouldn't go uncounted simply because they prefer to provide their information free of charge rather than "lock down their conclusions." Often intellectual property simply doesn't come in a prepackaged, child-resistant bottle that you market and capitalize on. Rankings don't always acknowledge that.
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