University patents: output and input indicators … of what?

Abstract

The increasing public and institutional support for university patents has opened two major sources of debate: First, does this emphasis affect the quality of research? Second, are university patents an effective mechanism for university-industry interaction? Our aim is to address both questions by clarifying the nature of university patents as outputs of different types of research and inputs of diverse instruments of interaction. We focus on the case of the Polytechnic University of Valencia at departmental level. We first construct a patent production function to discriminate what kind of research gives rise to patents and, second, several funding functions to find for which instruments patents are a better input. University patents appear to be an output of costly and long-term oriented research, either publicly or privately financed -in this latter case, through an indirect effect, the provision of industrial knowledge-, and also the input of a certain type of interaction -not through licensing but through signalling competencies. The fear that university patents affect negatively the quality of research is not justified, as they are the outcome of research at the frontiers of science. However, it is true that university patents only stimulate interaction with those firms that have enough absorptive capacity. If interaction with less capable firms is intended, other instruments are required.

In which regions do universities patent and publish more?

“…They also find the influence of the number of TTO employees significant and positive. Azagra et al [3] find this too.…”

“…Foltz et al [27] and Payne and Siow [41] do not find the number of faculty significant but Coupé [17] does. Azagra et al [3] do not find it significant but Azagra et al [4] do. Baldini et al [6] do not always find significant the effect of budget transfer from central government, taken as a proxy for size rather than for R&D resources.…”

“…Foltz et al [27] find that state funding has a positive, significant, influence on agricultural biotechnology university patents while federal funding has not. Azagra et al [3] find more costly, long-term-oriented, public funds significant, but not less costly, short-term-oriented ones. Azagra et al [4] find regional public funds significant.…”

“…The first six (Foltz et al [26]; [27]; Carlsson and Fridh [13]; Payne and Siow [41]; Coupé [17]; Baldini et al [6]) use universities as a unit of observation, five in the US case and one in the Italian case. Two of them refer to the department or laboratory level of single European universities (Azagra et al [3], [4] The most frequent determinant included is R&D expenditure. Carlsson and Fridh [13] find a significant positive impact of aggregate R&D on the number of disclosures.…”

“…3 A trend variable may capture them. Coupé [17], Azagra et al [3] and Baldini et al [6] find this trend positive and significant but Azagra et al [4] do not. The explanation may be in the national features of the following forces:…”