A comparison of university technology transfer offices’ commercialization strategies in the Scandinavian countries

Abstract

Many European countries have followed the American example by changing the intellectual property laws governing university technology transfer from university inventorship to university ownership. The Scandinavian countries have chosen different paths as Denmark and Norway changed their laws in favor of university ownership, while Sweden retained its university inventor laws. This longitudinal study shows increasing technology transfer organization (TTO) capacity in all three countries regardless of change in intellectual property rights (IPR) framework or not. Danish and Norwegian TTOs increased their use of the license commercialization strategy, with variations at the TTO level, while the Swedish universities TTOs have maintained their use of the spin-off commercialization strategy. The relative use of the two commercialization strategies, licensing and spin-offs, is indirectly influenced by the IPR framework, and more directly by the designs of the policy intent of the university technology transfer system, the government funding system, the TTOs access to business development resources and competence, and monitoring of the university TTOs.