I do not know the details of these particular patents and I am not a lawyer, but I would disagree that the policy is “quite clear” on this matter. The policy defines creator to mean “person or persons who create an item of intellectual property.” Since this IP was developed at a university, creators probably refers to a professor and one or more graduate students. I do not see anything in the policy that specifies how that 50% will be distributed. It is quite possible that the 50% would be distributed directly to the professor and the students would receive no compensation by default.

It's hard to imagine that a tech company would screen candidates based on area codes these days. I've been living in Seattle for over five years and still have a 415 (San Francisco) area code. I think people tend not to change their phone numbers when moving anymore.

That being said, I'm graduating soon with a PhD in bioinformatics, have an MS in computer science, and I'm not getting any interviews with large tech companies in the area. Maybe I do need a local phone number...