Small business ownership

Birch Bayh, Democratic senator from Indiana from 1963 to 1981. With Republican senator Robert Dole, he cosponsored the Bayh-Dole Act of 1980 or the University and Small Business Patent Procedures Act, which gave universities and small businesses ownership of patents resulting from projects funded by the federal government. The major drug companies benefited as well They can license new drugs from the universities and small businesses that discovered them. 

The practical, hands-on character of small business ownership, together with the strong involvement of close and extended family will define the perceptions of hazard and risk exposure. For operators of risk-exposed family businesses, safety will be a matter of responsibility to close and extended family. 

The Bayh-Dole Act, or the University and Small Business Patent Procedures Act, gives universities, small businesses, and nonprofit organizations the intellectual ownership of property, including new drugs, that they discover and develop with government funding. 

Small Business Association (SBA). 2003b. Forms of Business Ownership. Available at www.sba.gov/starting business/legal/fo rms.html. 

About 10 percent of the work force in the United States are self-employed. People choose to own and operate their own businesses for a variety of reasons to advance professionally by becoming a business owner, to earn more money, or to gain status. If you start your own business, you should be well prepared. Talk to business owners about their experiences and read books about business ownership. The United States Small Business Administration reports that over half of all new businesses fail within the first five years, and you do not want to be among them. 

Monsanto did not fare well under new ownership, however. Having exploited Celebrex, Pharmacia restructured many of Monsanto s businesses. Late in 2001 Pharmacia sold off the agricultural biotechnology business, which reemerged under Monsanto s name. (Pharmacia was subsequently acquired by Pfizer.) Early in the new century, Monsanto, which had been one of the most innovative and successful multisectored chemical companies, may be devolving into a small, focused agricultural biotechnology enterprise. 

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