Why Did Universities Start Patenting?

Abstract

This paper draws on institutional theory to explain the rise of university patenting in the USA. While observers have traditionally attributed this development to the Bayh-Dole Act of 1980, recent research has shown that university patenting was increasing throughout the 1970s and argued that the Act's impact was less than has generally been assumed. This paper attempts to reconcile these opposing positions by explaining the rise of university patenting as a process of institutionbuilding. Beginning in the 1960s, a skilled actor within the federal bureaucracy created a proto-institution that simplified university patenting and encouraged the development of a community of university patent administrators. In the 1970s, that community in turn allied itself with government proponents of patent policy liberalization and representatives of small business in a successful effort to pass the Bayh-Dole Act. The Act itself should be seen not as creating modern technology transfer, but rather as a final step in a state-driven process of institutionalization that was already well under way by 1980. The case is used to discuss how an institutional approach, which is infrequently seen in STS, can sometimes be useful to it.Keywords Bayh-Dole Act, commercialization, government, institutional theory, patents, technology transfer, universities Why Did Universities Start Patenting?Institution-Building and the Road to the Bayh-Dole Act Elizabeth Popp BermanAcademic science, once relatively insulated from market forces, has seen the Mertonian ideal of communism partially displaced by an argument that science, in order to be fully applied, must often be privately owned. In keeping with this logic, universities in the USA have been patenting faculty inventions in increasing numbers for the last several decades. University patenting was once considered inappropriate by many, who saw it as transferring a public good into private hands. Today, however, the practice is widely accepted and encouraged on the grounds that private ownership is often required in order to provide sufficient incentive for investment in the development of scientific inventions. A growing body of work examines how universities' patent practices have changed and to what effect

Inclusive Innovation in Biohacker Spaces: The Role of Systems and Networks

“…By allowing recipients of public funding to obtain IP rights on the outcomes of research, Bayh-Dole provides incentives to universities for commercially exploiting research. As a result, universities have become more interested in acquiring IP rights and value academic entrepreneurship (Popp, 2008).…”

Public research and innovative entrepreneurship

“…The OECD's project on inclusive innovation has identified policy initiatives implementing "inclusive innovation policies"a specific set of innovation policies that aim to boost the innovation capacities and opportunities of individuals and social groups that are underrepresented in innovation, research and entrepreneurship activities. Their goal is that all segments of society have opportunities to successfully participate in and benefit from innovation (here termed "social inclusiveness"): i) fostering the integration of disadvantaged groups in innovative activities and ii) addressing barriers to entrepreneurship encountered by disadvantaged groups (Planes-Satorra and Paunov, 2017 [23]; OECD, 2017 [24]).…”

The Nomos of the University: Introducing the Professor’s Privilege in 1940s Sweden

“…A key inspiration in these contexts was the Bayh-Dole Act launched in the U.S. in 1980, which gave universities the right to take patents on state funded research, a breach with the former legislation that awarded the federal government ownership of inventions, and a formal consolidation of a trend in which universities became increasingly interested in holding patents (see Mowery et al 2004; Popp Berman 2008). The Bayh-Dole Act gained strong influence outside the U.S. and has inspired an abolition movement that picked up pace by the end of the 1990s: Denmark abandoned the professor’s privilege in 1999 (Schovsbo 2008), Germany in 2002 (Kilger and Bartenbach 2002), Norway in 2003 (Iversen et al 2007: 398) and Finland in 2007 (Oesch 2009; Veugelers et al 2009: 295–295).…”