The Decline of University Patenting and the End of the Bayh-Dole Effect

University patenting has been heralded as a symbol of changing relations between universities and their social environments. The Bayh-Dole Act of 1980 in the USA was eagerly promoted by the OECD as a recipe for the commercialization of university research, and the law was imitated by a number of national governments. However, since the 2000s university patenting in the most advanced economies has been on the decline both as a percentage and in absolute terms. We suggest that the institutional incentives for university patenting have disappeared with the new regime of university ranking. Patents and spin-offs are not counted in university rankings. In the new arrangements of university-industry-government relations, universities have become very responsive to changes in their relevant environments

University Innovation and the Professor’s Privilige

Publisher PD

Commercializing Academic Research: The Quality of Faculty Patenting

The knowledge produced by academic scientists has been identified as a potential key driver of technological progress. Recent policies in Europe aim at increasing commercially orientated activities in academe. Based on a sample of German scientists across all fields of science we investigate the importance of academic patenting. Our findings suggest that academic involvement in patenting results in greater knowledge externalities, as academic patents appear to generate more forward citations. We also find that in the European context of changing research objectives and funding sources since the mid-90?s, the ?importance? of academic patents declines over time. We show that academic entrants have patents of lower ?quality? than academic incumbents but they did not cause the decline, since the relative importance of patents involving academics with an existing patenting history declined over time as well. Moreover, a preliminary evaluation of the effects of the abolishment of the ?professor privilege? (the German counterpart of the U.S. Bayh-Dole Act) reveals that this legal disposition led to an acceleration of this apparent decline. --academic inventors,faculty patenting,patent quality

Patenting Public-Funded Research for Technology Transfer: A Conceptual-Empirical Synthesis of US Evidence and Lessons for India

The question of protecting intellectual property rights by academic inventors wasnever seriously contemplated until the introduction of the Bayh-Dole Act in 1980 inthe US. The Act allowed universities to retain patent rights over inventions arising outof federally-funded research and to license those patents exclusively or nonexclusivelyat their discretion. This particular legislation was a response to thegrowing concern over the fact that federally funded inventions in the US were notreaching the market place. In this paper, we present a critical review of the USexperience after the Bayh-Dole Act and argue that the evidence is far from beingunambiguous. We discuss the debate surrounding the Act – the extent to which it wassuccessful in achieving its objectives, the unintended consequences, if any, and moregenerally, the effectiveness of IPR as a vehicle of technology transfer fromuniversities. We also discuss the limited evidence on Bayh-Dole type legislationsintroduced in other countries. A new legislation, along the lines of the US Bayh-DoleAct – The Protection and Utilisation of Public Funded IP Bill, 2008 – is presentlybefore the Indian parliament. The paper presents an Indian perspective against thebackdrop of the US experience in an attempt to draw concrete lessons for India.Bayh-Dole Act, public-funded research, universities, patents, India

PATENTING PUBLIC-FUNDED RESEARCH FOR TECHNOLOGY TRANSFER : A Conceptual-Empirical Synthesis of US Evidence and Lessons for India

The question of protecting intellectual property rights by academic inventors was never seriously contemplated until the introduction of the Bayh-Dole Act in 1980 in the US. The Act allowed universities to retain patent rights over inventions arising out of federally-funded research and to license those patents exclusively or nonexclusively at their discretion. This particular legislation was a response to the growing concern over the fact that federally funded inventions in the US were not reaching the market place. In this paper, we present a critical review of the US experience after the Bayh-Dole Act and argue that the evidence is far from being unambiguous. We discuss the debate surrounding the Act the extent to which it was successful in achieving its objectives, the unintended consequences, if any, and more generally, the effectiveness of IPR as a vehicle of technology transfer from universities. We also discuss the limited evidence on Bayh-Dole type legislations introduced in other countries. A new legislation, along the lines of the US Bayh-Dole Act The Protection and Utilisation of Public Funded IP Bill, 2008 is presently before the Indian parliament. The paper presents an Indian perspective against the backdrop of the US experience in an attempt to draw concrete lessons for India.Bayh-Dole Act, public-funded research, universities, Patents, India

Patenting and licensing of university research: promoting innovation or undermining academic values?

Since the 1980s in the US and the 1990s in Europe, patenting and licensing activities by universities have massively increased. This is strongly encouraged by governments throughout the Western world. Many regard academic patenting as essential to achieve 'knowledge transfer' from academia to industry. This trend has far-reaching consequences for access to the fruits of academic research and so the question arises whether the current policies are indeed promoting innovation or whether they are instead a symptom of a pro-intellectual property (IP) culture which is blind to adverse effects. Addressing this question requires both empirical analysis (how real is the link between academic patenting and licensing and 'development' of academic research by industry?) and normative assessment (which justifications are given for the current policies and to what extent do they threaten important academic values?). After illustrating the major rise of academic patenting and licensing in the US and Europe and commenting on the increasing trend of 'upstream' patenting and the focus on exclusive as opposed to non-exclusive licences, this paper will discuss five negative effects of these trends. Subsequently, the question as to why policymakers seem to ignore these adverse effects will be addressed. Finally, a number of proposals for improving university policies will be made