Academic patenting: the importance of industry support

Cornelia Lawson

doi:10.1007/s10961-012-9266-7

Abstract

This paper provides evidence that university-industry collaboration is important for turning commercial opportunities into patents. The results suggest that researchers who receive a large share of research grants from industry have a higher propensity to file a patent. Small dissemination grants generally exert a positive effect, whether they come from industry or not. It also finds that these interactions do not increase the number of industry owned patents alone but benefit universities’ commercialisation efforts in general.

Highlights

Universities have traditionally been an important source for knowledge creation and economic growth as they support industrial innovation through solving fundamental research problems (e.g. Aghion et al, 2008; Gibbons and Johnston, 1975; Nelson, 1986) and contribute directly through licensing of inventions resulting from their research (e.g. Henderson et al, 1998; Thursby and Kemp, 2002)
As already argued by e.g. Bercovitz and Feldman (2008) or Owen-Smith and Powell (2001), the support of pro-commercialisation partners is key in steering researchers towards patenting
Partners from industry perhaps have a strong interest in pushing academics towards commercialisation to recover their research investments or are more likely to sponsor research for commercial application

Summary

Introduction

Universities have traditionally been an important source for knowledge creation and economic growth as they support industrial innovation through solving fundamental research problems (e.g. Aghion et al, 2008; Gibbons and Johnston, 1975; Nelson, 1986) and contribute directly through licensing of inventions resulting from their research (e.g. Henderson et al, 1998; Thursby and Kemp, 2002). Since the 1980s universities have become increasingly proactive in their commercialisation efforts and the number of academic staff involved in patenting has increased dramatically Many papers stress the importance of patenting support provided through the commercialisation unit of the university and through financial incentives in form of royalties (Lach and Schankerman, 2008; Thursby and Kemp, 2002). Especially in the field of organisational behaviour, have further highlighted that the influence of peers or mentors on researcher’s attitudes towards commercialisation is one of the main factors for continuous entrepreneurial efforts (Bercovitz and Feldman, 2008; Ozgen and Baron, 2007; Stuart and Ding, 2006)

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