Technology–industry networks in technology commercialization: evidence from Korean university patents

Abstract

Although there is increasing interest in policy issues on university patents, studies hitherto have focused on certain limited factors or case studies. By using a two-mode network analysis, this study identifies idiosyncratic patterns and differences in technology---industry networks between the two groups of Korean university patents--commercialized and non-commercialized. We collected patent data including bibliographic information from Korean universities that have run a patent management advisor dispatch program since 2005. Then, network analysis and analysis of variance for the two groups were conducted to investigate the group differences. We found that the structure of the technology---industry network was significantly more direct and simpler for commercialized than for non-commercialized patents. Specifically, we found that both direct and indirect linkages between technology and related industry were more complex for the non-commercialized group than for the commercialized one: the direct linkage was stronger for the commercialized than for the non-commercialized group. Our study suggests an important aspect of technology commercialization from the perspective of the inherent characteristics of patents, which is at variance with the evolutionary approaches of previous studies.