University patenting activities and their link to the quantity and quality of scientific publications

Abstract

Integrating data from three independent data sources--USPTO patenting data, Shanghai Jiao Tong University's Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU) and the Times Higher Education Supplement's World University Ranking (WUR), we examine the possible link between patenting output and the quantity and quality of scientific publications among 281 leading universities world-wide. We found that patenting by these universities, as measured by patents granted by the USPTO, has grown consistently faster than overall US patenting over 1977-2000, although it has grown more slowly over the last 5 years (2000)(2001)(2002)(2003)(2004)(2005). Moreover, since the mid-1990s, patenting growth has been faster among universities outside North America than among those within North America. We also found that the patenting output of the universities over 2003-2005 is significantly correlated with the quantity and quality of their scientific publications. However, significant regional variations are found: for universities in North America, both the quantity and quality of scientific publications matter, but for European and Australian/NZ universities, only the quantity of publications matter, while for other universities outside North America and Europe/Australia/NZ, only quality of publications matter. We found similar findings when using EPO patenting data instead of USPTO data. Additionally, for USPTO data only, the degree of internationalization of faculty members is found to reduce patenting performance among North American universities, but to increase that of universities outside North America. Plausible explanations for these empirical observations and implications for future research are discussed.

Performances of Technology Transfer Activities of US Universities after Bayh-Dole Act

“…Based on the data obtained from USPTO [11], Wong and Singh [8] studied the total patents annually issued by US government to 103 universities for the time span from 1977 to 2005. Among these 103 universities, 86 are from USA and 17 are in Canada; they are all leading research universities ranked by both the ARWU (Academic Ranking of World Universities) [15] and the WUR (World University Ranking) [16].…”

“…Among these 103 universities, 86 are from USA and 17 are in Canada; they are all leading research universities ranked by both the ARWU (Academic Ranking of World Universities) [15] and the WUR (World University Ranking) [16]. The university patenting data reported by Wong and Singh [8] are again normalized by the annual number of the total domestically assigned U S patents to obtain the university patent share. The results obtained and the associated correlation is all shown in Fig.…”

“…This calculation further confirms that the growth rate of university patenting share should be approximately 16% during the period of 1983 to 1999. based on raw data from Ref. [8] and [11].…”

“…In this paper, the impacts of the Bayh-Dole Act on the performances of patenting and licensing in US universities are quantitatively examined. The raw data obtained from five independent sources, including results from Mowery et al [7] and Wong et al [8], as well as the reports from AUTM [9], [10], USPTO [11], and NSF [12], [13], are examined and compared to each other to form the required data for further correlation analyses. Correlation results are used for the projection of the future trends of patenting and licensing activities as well as to confirm some earlier observations.…”

Determinants of national patent ownership by public research organisations and universities

“…In many of the microeconomic production functions estimated using universities as the unit of observation (Coupé 2003;Azagra et al 2003;2006a, b;Baldini et al 2006;Carayol 2007;Acosta et al 2008;Wong and Singh 2009;Baldini 2009), one of the theoretical determinants of university-owned patents is university R&D expenditures and/or other measures for university research size, such as R&D staff. The impact of R&D on patents tends to be positive and significant, with elasticities lower than 1.…”