Abstract
In this paper, we present the results of a network analysis applied to academic patent data in a subsector of the chemical field in Italy in the period 2000–2011. In particular, we analyse the micro-level interactions to point out the different network structures shaped by university-owned and university-invented patents. We detected three subnetwork typologies (labelled type A, B, and C) that exemplify different qualitative relational structures as well as different attributions to propriety rights. Type A (open science) exemplifies the typical owned patent; type B (multiple ties) represents the hybrid structure with multiple ties and involvement of academics as individuals and of universities as organisation; type C (disconnected subnetworks) represents the typical invented patent with no role of universities as organisation. The whole network seems to show a breaking point in terms of connectivity around 2005, a year that marks a change in policy rule and strategic orientation of Italian universities towards patenting. After 2005, the number of actors grew disproportionally and the network appears disconnected in several comparable components. Also, the composition in terms of subnetwork types changed. The overall picture seems to underline a big structural change dominated by the important increase of academic patenting both direct (university ownership) and indirect (increasing academic patenting).
Highlights
Universities play determinant roles in a knowledge-based society and have wide impacts on the evolution of economies and the collective well-being
We extend that approach to a more general case, focusing on the patenting activities of researchers belonging to a subsector of the Italian academic chemists, namely general and inorganic chemistry
To study the co-invention network created by an Italian academic inventor in the chemistry science sector, we follow the approach of Capellari and De Stefano (2013, 2014)
Summary
Universities play determinant roles in a knowledge-based society and have wide impacts on the evolution of economies and the collective well-being. Capellari and De Stefano (2014), adopting an approach combining local and individual relational characteristics, showed that university-owned and university-invented patents could create rather different network structures They identified three typical subnetworks as prototypes of interaction, defined as: (i) open science, (ii) multiple interactions and (iii) disconnected subnetworks (see Fig. 1). The observed cross-level link represented by the inventor-assignee link can be, on the contrary, an important channel of knowledge exchange and spill-over effects mediated by the collaboration for patent This importance is due to the different modes of functioning of the two main organisations involved in academic patenting activities, namely universities and private firms. The CNR links, through co-patenting, half of the universities already present in the
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