The federal government told Harvard University on Friday it could take control of the school’s patents stemming from federally funded research — the latest in a months-long feud between the Trump administration and the Ivy League college.

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick is launching an “immediate comprehensive review” of whether Harvard has complied with federal laws around patents, he said in a letter to Harvard President Alan Garber.

The patents in question could be worth hundreds of millions of dollars, a senior administration official said, and in his letter, Lutnick threatened to grant third-party licenses to Harvard’s patents or take the titles to any patents where Harvard has failed to comply with government title and disclosure requirements.

Lutnick ordered the Massachusetts-based school to provide information on all patents that it obtained through federally funded research.

“We believe that Harvard has failed to live up to its obligations to the American taxpayer and is in breach of the statutory, regulatory, and contractual requirements tied to Harvard’s federally funded research programs and intellectual property arising therefrom,” Lutnick said.

He gave Harvard until Sept. 5 to respond and prove it’s complying with the Bayh-Dole Act. Under that legislation, universities receiving federal research grants have to show that inventions issuing from that funding are being used to benefit Americans. 

The Trump administration wants Harvard to provide a list of all the patents it has that stem from federal grants, how the patents are currently being applied and details about licensing agreements, including whether they mandate “substantial U.S. manufacturing” and the identities of the licensees.  

A Harvard spokesperson called the move “yet another retaliatory effort targeting Harvard for defending its rights and freedom.” 

“Technologies and patents developed at Harvard are life-saving and industry-redefining. We are fully committed to complying with the Bayh-Dole Act and ensuring that the public is able to access and benefit from the many innovations that arise out of federally funded research at Harvard,” the spokesperson said.

The Trump administration has paused or cut off billions in federal research funding to Harvard, accusing the university of failing to deal with campus antisemitism. Harvard has sued over the funding freezes, alleging the government is illegally punishing the school for First Amendment-protected activity and trying to “force Harvard to submit to the Government’s control over its academic programs.”

Before the funding cutoff, the administration demanded that Harvard agree to changes — including an external audit of certain academic departments, an end to DEI programs and stricter disciplinary policies — if it wants to maintain its “financial relationship” with the federal government. Harvard rejected the demands.

President Trump has also pushed the Internal Revenue Service to review Harvard’s tax-exempt status. And he directed his administration to bar most foreign students from traveling to the U.S. to study at Harvard, though a judge blocked that move.

Mr. Trump has suggested he’s open to making a deal with Harvard. Some other Ivy League schools that faced funding freezes have cut deals with the administration, with Columbia University and Brown University making various concessions to the federal government.

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump’s administration escalated its standoff with Harvard University on Thursday, revoking the school’s ability to enroll international students.

The government told Harvard’s thousands of current foreign students that they must transfer to other schools or they will lose their legal permission to be in the U.S.

The move could significantly affect the university, which enrolls nearly 6,800 international students, most of them in graduate programs. Those students may now have to scramble to figure out their next steps.

The Department of Homeland Security took this latest step because Harvard refused to comply with requests to produce records about its foreign students, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said in a letter. Noem accused Harvard of “perpetuating an unsafe campus environment that is hostile to Jewish students, promotes pro-Hamas sympathies and employs racist ‘diversity, equity and inclusion’ policies.’” Harvard said the action is unlawful and undermines the school’s research mission.

Here’s what to know about how this decision affects international students and what legal authority Noem has to take the step.

The U.S. government has authority over who comes into the country. The Department of Homeland Security oversees which colleges are part of the Student Exchange and Visitor Program, and on Thursday it said it would remove Harvard. The program gives colleges the ability to issue documentation to foreign students admitted to the schools. Then, the students apply to obtain visas to study in the United States.

Students who completed their degrees this semester will be allowed to graduate. Noem’s letter said the changes would take effect for the 2025-2026 school year. Harvard’s Class of 2025 is expected to graduate next week.

However, students who have yet to complete their degree need to transfer to another university, Noem said, or they’ll lose their legal permission to remain in the U.S.

No, not unless the government changes its decision or a court steps in. For now, Noem said Harvard could restore its status as a host institution for foreign students if it complied with a list of demands within 72 hours. Those demands include requests for a range of records, such as disciplinary records for international students, plus audio and video recordings of protest activity.

Harvard previously declined to provide those records. The university said Thursday it was working to provide guidance to affected students.

Harvard’s battle with the Trump administration dates to early April. The storied institution became the first elite college to refuse to comply with the government’s demands to limit pro-Palestinian protests and eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion policies. That kicked off a series of escalating actions against Harvard. Various federal agencies, including DHS and the National Institutes of Health, have cut their grant funding to Harvard, significantly impacting research projects conducted by faculty. Harvard has sued the administration, seeking to end the grant freeze.

The administration first threatened to revoke Harvard’s ability to host international students back in April. Trump also has said Harvard should lose its tax-exempt status. Doing so would strike at the school’s ability to fundraise, as wealthy donors often give to tax-exempt institutions to lower their own tax burdens.

____

AP Education Writer Collin Binkley contributed.

____

The Associated Press’ education coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

BOSTON — Harvard University for decades assumed it had a cheap copy of the Magna Carta in its collection, a stained and faded document it had purchased for less than $30.

But two researchers have concluded it has something much more valuable — a rare version from 1300 issued by Britain’s King Edward I.

The original Magna Carta established in 1215 the principle that the king is subject to law, and it has formed the basis of constitutions globally. There are four copies of the original and, until now, there were believed to be only six copies of the 1300 version.

“My reaction was one of amazement and, in a way, awe that I should have managed to find a previously unknown Magna Carta,” said David Carpenter, a professor of medieval history at King’s College London. He was searching the Harvard Law School Library website in December 2023 when he found the digitized document.

“First, I’d found one of the most rare documents and most significant documents in world constitutional history,” Carpenter said. “But secondly, of course, it was astonishment that Harvard had been sitting on it for all these years without realizing what it was.”

Carpenter teamed up with Nicholas Vincent, a professor of medieval history at Britain’s University of East Anglia, to confirm the authenticity of Harvard’s document.

Comparing it to the other six copies from 1300, Carpenter found the dimensions matched up. He and Vincent then turned to images Harvard librarians created using ultraviolet light and spectral imaging. The technology helps scholars see details on faded documents that are not visible to the human eye.

That allowed them to compare the texts word-for-word, as well as the handwriting, which include a large capital ‘E’ at the start in ‘Edwardus’ and elongated letters in the first line.

After the 1215 original printed by King John, five other editions were written in the following decades — until 1300, the last time the full document was set out and authorized by the king’s seal.

The 1300 version of Magna Carta is “different from the previous versions in a whole series of small ways and the changes are found in every single one,” Carpenter said.

Harvard had to meet a high bar to prove authenticity, Carpenter said, and it did so “with flying colors.”

Its tattered and faded copy of the Magna Carta is worth millions of dollars, Carpenter estimated — though Harvard has no plans to sell it. A 1297 version of the Magna Carta sold at auction in 2007 for $21.3 million.

The other mystery behind the document was the journey it took to Harvard.

That task was left to Vincent, who was able to trace it all the way back to the former parliamentary borough of Appleby in Westmorland, England.

The Harvard Law School library purchased its copy in 1946 from a London book dealer for $27.50. At the time, it was wrongly dated as being made in 1327.

Vincent determined the document was sent to a British auction house in 1945 by a World War I flying ace who also played a role defending Malta in World War II. The war hero, Forster Maynard, inherited the archives from Thomas and John Clarkson, who were leading campaigners against the slave trade. One of them, Thomas Clarkson, became friends with William Lowther, hereditary lord of the manor of Appleby, and he possibly gave it to Clarkson.

“There’s a chain of connection there, as it were, a smoking gun, but there isn’t any clear proof as yet that this is the Appleby Magna Carta. But it seems to me very likely that it is,” Vincent said. He said he would like to find a letter or other documentation showing the Magna Carta was given to Thomas Clarkson.

Vincent and Carpenter plan to visit Harvard in June to see its Magna Carta firsthand — and they say the document is as relevant as ever at a time when Harvard is clashing with the Trump administration over how much authority the federal government should have over its leadership, admissions and activism on campus.

“It turns up at Harvard at precisely the moment where Harvard is under attack as a private institution by a state authority that seems to want to tell Harvard what to do,” Vincent said.

It also is a chance for a new generation to learn about the Magna Carta, which played a part in the founding of the United States — from the Declaration of Independence to the adoption of the Bill of Rights. Seventeen states have incorporated aspects of it into their laws.

“We think of law libraries as places where people can come and understand the underpinnings of democracy,” said Amanda Watson, the assistant dean for library and information services at Harvard Law School. “To think that Magna Carta could inspire new generations of people to think about individual liberty and what that means and what self-governance means is very exciting.”