The different impact on scientific output of academic-owned vs. academic-invented patents: evidence from a panel of Italian academic inventors

Abstract

This paper explores, by means of descriptive and econometric methods, the relation between publishing and patenting at the individual scientist’s level in a large multi-faculty university for the period 1999–2005. It studies the relationship between academic patenting and publications count (per researcher per year) and mean citation rate, both at the pooled level and by a distinction between university- and firm-owned academic patents. Coherently with the current empirical literature, the results show a positive and significant effect of patenting on publications and citations, although with different intensity over time lags. Our paper goes beyond these results (well established in the literature) and detects the existence of differentiated impacts for three main types of academic patents: privately owned, publicly owned and other patents (including those individually owned and with mixed private–public ownership). According to our results, scientists patenting with industries are more productive in terms of scientific output after the patenting event.