Institutions and intellectual property: The influence of institutional forces on university patenting

Abstract

Over the past 20 years, the number of patents assigned to universities has increased dramatically. This increase coincided with several policy initiatives, such as the Bayh-Dole Act of 1980, designed to foster technology transfer between universities and the private sector. This paper examines the effect of such policies using an institutional framework, designed to illustrate how factors both from inside and outside of academia influence the decision to patent university research. We find passage of the Bayh-Dole Act spurred university patenting, but did not induce additional applied research funding. Thus, Bayh-Dole fostered technology transfer, but did not result in more applied research at universities. © 2005 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management

Analyzing the Process of Patent Submission with a Special Emphasis on the Phases of the Research Process - the Case of Slovenia

“…In USA, the number of successful patent applications has increased from 517 in 1980 to 3289 in 1995 (Morgan et al, 2001). Furthermore, growth can also be observed in Slovenia (Table 2) Regardless of the fact that the final decision on knowledge research and dissemination remains in the hands of researchers at universities and public research institutes (in terms of publications or patents), studies have shown (Dai et al, 2005) that researchers' decisions are affected both by characteristics of the university environment and the wider society, as well as by policies. Therefore, it can be established that patenting activity is indirectly or directly influenced by two main groups of factors: internal at the level of the researcher and external at the level of universities and the level of the wider environment (country).…”

“…In the spirit of marketing, the latter are moving towards "entrepreneurial organizations" (Dai et al, 2005). According to Etzkowitz (2003), these changes can be partially attributed to a new competitive way of funding and the adjustment (expansion) in orientations (e.g.…”

“…Secondly, the manner of research funding can have a great impact on knowledge value. The presentation of publicly funded research findings requires project reports or scientific articles as final products (Dai et al, 2005). In addition, the nature of research, whether basic or applied, can affect the research outcome.…”

“…a conceptual model, was designed based on the reviewed literature to serve the purpose of analysis and interpretation of factors that affect the number of patent applications. The model of societal influences on the research process developed by Dai et al (2005) was used as a starting point and partially adapted (Figure 1). Since the chain encompasses numerous factors that impede or motivate researchers, from knowledge detection and dissemination to the application of newly created knowledge, factors must be divided into individual phases and differentiated according to their origin.…”

“…The subject of researchers' patenting activity is rather new and topical; it intertwines with studies in various subfields and thus causes discrepancies in theoretical bases. Reasons for such discrepancies lie in the wideness of the research area, which includes the following topics: forms of intellectual property rights (Davis, 2004), the patenting process (Erickson, 2003), innovation influence factors and patenting (Dai et al, 2005), relations between different actors participating in the production of new knowledge (Etzkowitz et al, 2000), the organization of institutions, transfer of knowledge to the economy (Etzkowitz, 2003;Dietz and Bozeman, 2005), forms and significance of knowledge transfer, relations between the public and private sectors and their cooperation (Geuna and Nesta, 2006;Giuri et al, 2007), and so on. Due to the newness of the subject, no research guidelines have so far been established.…”