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

Abstract

India's post-independence technology policies relied heavily on public-funded research for indigenous technological capacity building and technology development. However, public-funded research has failed to adequately contribute to India's industrial catch-up. India is now contemplating a new legislation similar to the US Bayh–Dole Act 1980, to energize public-funded research for effective technology transfer. The Bayh–Dole Act was passed in the United States in 1980 in response to the growing concern over the fact that federally funded inventions in the United States were not reaching the market place. The act allowed universities to retain patent rights over inventions arising out of federally funded research and to license those patents exclusively or non-exclusively at their discretion. 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 intellectual property rights as a vehicle of technology transfer from universities. The paper presents an Indian perspective against the backdrop of the US experience in an attempt to draw concrete lessons for India.