Licensing Revenue Research Articles

Entrepreneurial education for the entrepreneurial university: a stakeholder perspective

Entrepreneurial universities have gained increasing prominence across the globe and are now engines for regional economic development. While a few, elite universities are successful at developing and exploiting entrepreneurial capital, most universities have achieved only modest results, even after changing organizational structures, incentive systems and strategic priorities. Given this dichotomy, it is time for universities to examine how entrepreneurial education can play a greater role in shaping the entrepreneurial university model to exploit its benefits. We argue that the two institutionalized metrics—number of new firms formed and the amount of licensing revenue—used to evaluate performance of entrepreneurial universities are not easily applicable to science and technology entrepreneurship education. We integrate logic from stakeholder theory to provide a framework for explaining the relationship between entrepreneurship education and the formal and informal processes of technology commercialization within the entrepreneurial university. In addition, we advance a set of questions and performance metrics to evaluate entrepreneurial education initiatives inside of the entrepreneurial university. Thus, our paper includes educational assessment metrics reflecting the needs of a wider variety of stakeholders, including administrators, students, and technology commercialization offices. We conclude with a discussion on the implications for this framework including future research directions.

Push, Pull, Rerun: Television Reruns and Streaming Media

In scholarly and industry analyses of television’s expansion into online distribution, few have accounted for the specific negotiations required when old television content streams on new media. This article considers the economic consequences, viewer utility, and cultural position of television reruns as they expand from the pushed flows of legacy television to the pull contexts of digital streaming. The emergence of streaming outlets upsets conventions of off-network syndication yet introduces new licensing revenue to television markets, and streaming undermines the pleasures of familiar, passive entertainment offered by reruns. Reruns, as a concept, a cultural commodity, and as an archive of a televisual past and present, are reconfigured with the move toward streaming television. Internet distribution of television reruns provides a necessary case study to investigate the full scope of how streaming services are destabilizing the conventions of the U.S. television industries.

Licensing Essential Patents: The Non‐Discriminatory Commitment and Hold‐Up

Licensors of patents essential to a standard are often required to license on reasonable and non‐discriminatory (RAND) terms. Using a model with owners of essential patents and licensees who invest into standard‐conforming technologies, this paper demonstrates that the non‐discriminatory commitment alleviates the hold‐up problem. Moreover, it improves consumer and social welfare, and promotes upstream innovation as licensing revenue is increased. In an extended model with each licensor independently choosing whether to make the commitment, all licensors voluntarily commit in the unique equilibrium.

(How) Do Managers Matter? A Natural Experiment from 42 R&D Labs in India

We exploit plausibly exogenous variation in the staggered entry of new managers into India's 42 public R&D labs between 1994 and 2006 to study how alignment between the CEO and middle-level managers affect research productivity. We show that the introduction of new lab managers aligned with the national R&D reforms raised patenting and multinational licensing revenues by 58% and 75%, respectively, and scientist research productivity, including: a 16%, 10%, 11%, and 22% increase in h-indices, number of coauthors, publications, and citations per scientist, respectively. Using natural language processing (NLP) techniques on the set of research abstracts produced among these scientists, we also find that overall mood and sentiment increased by 8.5% following the first managerial change.

Emerging Research Institutionss Technology Transfer Supply Chain Networkss Sustainability: Budget Resource Planning Tool Development

Emerging Research Institutions (ERIs) can benefit from patent licensing revenues from the transfer of patented technologies into the commercial marketplace because these added revenues can help research institutions become more sustainable financially. However, many ERIs struggle to succeed in technology transfer. This study describes the development of a university technology transfer supply chain network sustainability tool that private and public Emerging Research Institutions (ERIs) can use to become more self-reliant financially. Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) are ERIs and are used as a case study. HBCUs lag behind their peer non- HBCUs because historically they have been under- served and were originally established largely as teaching and blue collar trade schools. Some doctoral HBCUs desire to strengthen their research activities. Systems dynamics is the process of combining the theory, method and philosophy necessary to analyze the behavior of a system in order to provide a common foundation that can be applied whenever it is desired to understand and influence how things change over time. Applying the systems dynamics approach, a budget resource planning tool was developed using a linear programming optimization technique. This study illustrates that classic industrial uses of linear programming optimization techniques can uniquely be used to optimize budget resource planning for sustainable HBCU supply chain networks and other emerging research institutions. This study contributes to the improved execution of technology transfer projects through better budget resource planning.

Heuristic Rules in the Field: Evidence from Royalty Shares in Scientific Teams

Using field data from a large U.S. technology transfer organization with over $50 million in annual revenue, we investigate four related issues regarding the sharing of licensing revenues by academic teams. First, we find that the main empirical regularity is a heuristic-based allocation of shares 1/n, equal shares to all unique inventors in a single invention team, and the use of the partition dependence (PD) rule, whereby inventors receive equal share within an invention and shares across inventions included in the same contract are equal. Second, when we examine the performance consequences of such equal sharing, we find it is negatively related to performance. Third, using both matched sample estimations and examining strategic switchers, i.e., the case of inventors who switch between equal and unequal sharing, we find that self-selection rather than shirking explains the negative performance. Finally, the pattern of their switching is random in time — i.e., there is no movement toward unequal rules over time so inventors are not learning to use unequal rules.

Strategic human resource management for university-industry collaborations in Korea: financial incentives for academic faculty and employment security of industry liaison offices

ABSTRACTIn an attempt to understand why some universities achieve better outcomes from university-industry collaborations, this study adopts the perspective of strategic human resource management that emphasises the congruence between the university strategic orientation and the human resource practices. Based on a large-scale survey of universities in Korea, this study suggests that the human resource management practices of providing incentive compensation to academic faculty, and the employment security and size of human resources in the industry liaison offices significantly contribute to the university-industry collaboration performance, such as the number of registered patents, licensing revenue of intellectual property, and the integrated collaboration revenue.

Land‐Grant University Faculty Attitudes in and Engagement with Open Source Scholarship and Commercialization

Core Ideas The push for open source/open access science recalls the formation of land grant universities. A 2016 LGU faculty survey revealed strong support for open source/open access science. Most based research choices around scientific curiosity than commercialization potential. Plant scientists had the highest reliance on licensing revenues but still only 3% of total lab revenues. It may be time to reassess the research model of public universities. Based on a nationally representative survey done in 2016, this article examines the attitudes and activities of agricultural and life science faculty at US land grant universities with respect to open access/open source versus commercialization of research. The findings reveal pervasive faculty support for open scientific inquiry and sharing of knowledge and relatively low levels of participation in and laboratory market funding associated with commercialization activities. These results point toward the potential timeliness of a reassessment of public universities policies and public relations with respect to open science and commercialization.

Emerging research institutions' technology transfer supply chain networks' sustainability: Budget resource planning tool development

Emerging Research Institutions (ERIs) can benefit from patent licensing revenues from the transfer of patented technologies into the commercial marketplace because these added revenues can help research institutions become more sustainable financially. However, many ERIs struggle to succeed in technology transfer. This study describes the development of a university technology transfer supply chain network sustainability tool that private and public ERIs can use to become more self-reliant financially. Historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) are ERIs and are used as a case study. HBCUs lag behind their peer non-HBCUs because historically they have been under-served and were originally established largely as teaching and blue-collar trade schools. Some doctoral HBCUs desire to strengthen their research activities. Systems dynamics is the process of combining the theory, method, and philosophy necessary to analyze the behavior of a system in order to provide a common foundation that can be applied whenever it is desired to understand and influence how things change over time. Applying the systems dynamics approach, a budget resource planning tool was developed using a linear programming optimization technique. This study illustrates that classic industrial uses of linear programming optimization techniques can uniquely be used to optimize budget resource planning for sustainable HBCU supply chain networks and other emerging research institutions. This study contributes to the improved execution of technology transfer projects through better budget resource planning.

Linking alliance portfolios to recombinant innovation: The combined effects of diversity and alliance experience

Innovating firms establish alliance portfolios in hopes of creating recombinant innovation, an outcome of combining new ideas from diverse technological domains. We draw on research in alliances, social networks, and knowledge spillovers to identify the configuration of alliance portfolio that links to recombinant innovation. Our longitudinal analysis of firms in the biotechnology industry shows that the technological diversity of a firm's alliance portfolio has a positive impact on the breadth of recombinant innovation produced by the firm. This relationship is strengthened in the presence of explorative alliance experience, rather than exploitative alliance experience, between the firm and its portfolio partners and among the portfolio partners. However, the positive influence of alliance experience in general diminishes when more than half of portfolio partners have prior ties with the firm. Finally, our licensing revenue data show that the breadth of recombinant innovation is strongly related to the economic value of the innovation. Our findings suggest that innovating firms need to manage the balancing act between sourcing for ideas from unfamiliar domains and leveraging alliance experience in configuring their alliances in aggregate. This study offers new insight into the composition and the collective experience of alliance portfolios, extending our understanding of alliance performance beyond the outcome of bilateral alliances.

PATENT PROTECTION AS A STRATEGIC TOOL FOR MODERN ENTERPRISES

The main purpose of the patent system is to ensure protection of valuable technological knowledge and thus to provide incentives to creative effort and investment in R&D. However, patents are more intensively used by enterprises for various other strategic reasons, eg. attracting potential investors and partners, blocking competitors, generate licensing revenues or creating positive image of the company. As a result, the patent strategies of modern enterprises are becoming broader and more complex. The aim of this paper is to present opportunities and challenges related to the use of patent protection mechanisms as a strategic tool for modern enterprises. The study provides also a literature review on strategic use of patents and indicates the most promising directions for further research in this area.

Modern evaluation of patents

The number of patents is not so important as the market value. The market value is especially important for licensing of patents, make-or-buy decisions for technology procurement, corporate finance. Patents can be used as collateral for financing. Patents and credit approvals: without patents only 46% and with patents 54%. The value share of knowledge-based components to industrial products already reached 50% and it is still rising. OECD called these developments under the slogan "knowledge economy”. German Norm-DIN 77100 provides a working method for monetary evaluation of a patent. The value of a patent arises from its use. A patent can be used to protect or to earn licensing revenues. An evaluation expertise is required in areas, such as marketing, finance, R & D and strategic planning. As an indicator of the value of a patent is often used the number of citations. The number of a patent citation refers to its meaning and value. Other indicators would be: size of the patent family, validity of the patent, result of objections against patent application, number and quality of claims. The analysis of 9.000 patents resulted that only 7.2% worth over 10 million euro and 68% below 1 million euro. The cost method: it is considered the cost that would be incurred for the development and patenting of a similar invention. The market method: are used the prices that have been achieved in comparable with recently transactions. The Income method: the potential reward is measured, which can arise from a patent. The evaluation will be in the following areas: legal status, technology, market conditions, finance and strategy. Each question relates to a different parameter of a value.

Licensing a technology standard

I examine the optimal licensing strategy of the owner of a proprietary technology standard in a monopolistically competitive industry. The standard owner can be either an outsider inventor or a joint venture of downstream firms. I find that (1) a simple revenue royalty replicates the integrated monopoly outcome; (2) a patent pool cannot do better than adopting a non-discriminatory licensing policy that offers higher royalty rates to pool members than to nonmembers; (3) if the standard owner also sells a complementary good, then it may choose a decentralized marketplace as a commitment not to maximize licensing revenue. Implications to the use of RAND pricing in standard settings are discussed.

The PRC NDRC Case against Qualcomm: A Misguided Venture or Justified Enforcement of Competition Law?

The Chinese Anti-Monopoly Law (AML) has attracted much attention in recent years. There have been accusations of protectionism and of the AML being used to target foreign companies. Against this backdrop, the investigation by the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) against Qualcomm over the latter’s licensing practices was especially controversial. This was particularly so because China has long complained about the high licensing fees its domestic manufacturers have to pay to foreign patentees. And Qualcomm is a major licensor of communications technologies and earns a very considerable amount of licensing revenue in China. Qualcomm was eventually slapped the largest fine in the history of Chinese AML enforcement and subject to a number of behavioural remedies. The question arises as to whether the NDRC decision was a poorly reasoned protectionist venture or was in fact consistent with sound competition law principles. This article attempts to answer this question by critically evaluating the reasoning of the decision. It finds that even though the NDRC reached the correct conclusion on some of the claims, the analysis and the reasoning leave much to be desired.

Assessing economic impact of research and innovation originating from public research institutions and universities—case of Singapore PRIs

Research and innovation activities from universities and public research institutes (PRIs) contribute to economic growth in significant ways. Given the hefty investment in R&D in both public and private sectors, it is essential for policy makers to have meaningful, relevant and practical metrics for measuring the impact of public-funded research and innovation. However, the definition of impact and its measurements seem to differ across the literature, making it difficult for scholars and policy makers to inform policy and direct future research. This paper aims to consolidate all parts of the proverbial elephants by reviewing the extant literature for university/PRI impact studies, analysing and synthesising the erstwhile disparate studies, discussing the current metrics and their issues and identifying gaps among the different research strands. Building on the endogenous growth theory and the Triple Helix, we contribute to the body of knowledge by offering a multi-level Impact Assessment Framework for assessing the economic impact of public research. In the context of the framework, we applied the transaction cost economics theory and net present value concept to propose a new indicator, realised imputed commercial value (RICV). We empirically establish that RICV is a better predictor than the traditional licensing revenue metric used by universities/PRIs of firms’ propensity to repeat licensing agreement with them, thereby indicating academic innovation impact.

Estrategia e innovación en las Mipymes colombianas ganadoras del premio Innova 2010-2013

This research, exploratory and descriptive, aims to inquire about the association between some variables of strategy and innovation, in Colombian SMEs that won the Innova Award of the Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Tourism in the period 2010-2013. The method used was multiple correspondence analysis, in which associations between modalities were found. The most important results of the research show that there is a strong association of enterprises that conduct a comprehensive process of strategic management (formulation, implementation and monitoring) with the positive results of innovation (patents and licensing revenue generation), with a proactive or preactive business management style and a flexible organizational structure, among others.

Learning to license technology: the role of experience and workforce's skills in Spanish manufacturing firms

Firms increasingly pursue technology licensing for appropriating economic returns from their R&D investments. Despite this tendency, extracting revenues from licensing remains a challenge for most firms. This article explores the role of task‐specific experience and of workforce skills as determinants of superior licensing volume. The rationale is that these factors contribute to the development of a desorptive capacity that allows companies to overcome the complexities posed by technology licensing. Using panel data of Spanish manufacturing firms, we find that prior experience in licensing positively affects licensing revenues at a decreasing rate. These learning‐by‐doing effects are strengthened when firms have a higher proportion of their workforce endowed with advanced skills, whereas they are reduced when firms have a higher proportion of low‐skilled employees. These results contribute to licensing and open innovation research by partly specifying the nature and anatomy of desorptive capacity and by highlighting the key role of intellectual human capital in licensing, whose contribution depends on the skills level. They also inform managers on the mechanisms that can enhance their firms’ licensing volume.

Patent Assertion Entities and EU Competition Law

Patent Assertion Entities (“PAEs”) are playing a growing role in the United States, but also in Europe. Their activities are controversial in that while they may be a source of efficiencies, they may also create anticompetitive harm. Given the growing trend of operating companies transferring patents to PAEs in order to increase their licensing revenues, the risks of anticompetitive harm created by PAE activities must be taken seriously. When analysing the impact of PAE activities on competition, a distinction must be drawn between “pure” PAEs, which acquire patents from a variety of sources and generate revenues by asserting them, and “hybrid” PAEs, which acquire patents from operating companies and maintain a relationship with these companies post-acquisition. While pure PAEs create risks of exploitation, hybrid PAEs create exclusionary concerns as such PAEs may be used by operating companies to harm their rivals on downstream product markets. These exclusionary concerns are particularly serious when the operating company retains a significant degree of control over the activities of the PAE following the transfer of the patents. As there is currently no EU competition case-law on the activities of PAEs, this paper attempts to show through hypotheticals that depending on the circumstances of each case, privateering may lead to exclusion.

Identifying economic ramifications resulting from accepting equity vs. requiring traditional licensing payment methods

The purpose of this study was to analyze the economic ramifications resulting from research universities' acceptance of equity positions in spin-off companies as an alternative to traditional forms of licensing payments. The study was conducted using the most recent three years (i.e., 2011, 2012, and 2013) of the Licensing Activity Survey conducted by the Association of University Technology Managers. Universities that had accepted equity in start-up companies had statistically significantly higher licensing revenue, in all three years, than universities that did not accept equity positions in start-up ventures. However, higher total licensing revenue earned by universities could be attributed to increases in running royalty revenues received in each of those same years. Revenues from cashed-in equity positions fell precipitously in years 2011, 2012, and 2013. Universities may continue to take equity positions in start-up, joint venture companies despite decreasing revenues from cashed-in equity positions because the potential exists to create (a) a positive impact on regional economies, (b) new jobs for the schools' graduates and, (c) windfall profits for equity holders if the companies' technologies or inventions become commercially successful.

IP Strategy and Use of IP Protection Mechanisms Across Firm Size: An Empirical Investigation

In this paper we use data from the 2012 Innovation Strategy Survey (485 responses) to compare motives and choices with respect to IP strategy in firms with sizes ranging from micro to very large. Our results confirm significant differences across firm size when it comes to strategic goals, availability of means to deal with open innovation environments, the ability to generate licensing revenues, as well as the in the practice and motivations for the use of non-patenting disclosure. We find, for example, that the potential of licensing as a means of appropriating value only holds in the context of the very large firms, which has implications for the IP strategy of smaller actors. Likewise, we also begin to see a pattern emerging concerning the openness of firms’ innovation strategy wherein the extremes of the firm-size scale tend to express similar behavior but for apparently different reasons; thus they apply differing IP strategies. By our interpretation, smaller firms exhibit a predominant preference for open IP strategies while very large firms tend to exhibit more closed IP strategies. We also find that the majority of firms—in particular micro-sized firms—is interested in securing freedom to operate. This provides further reason for us to believe that the practice of strategic disclosure—a competitive and cost effective means to enhance freedom to operate—is underrepresented in awareness and use within integrated IP strategies.