Public science and public innovation: Assessing the relationship between patenting at U.S. National Laboratories and the Bayh-Dole Act

Most studies of the effects of the Bayh-Dole Act have focused on universities. In contrast, we analyze patenting activity at two prominent national laboratories, Sandia National Laboratories and the National Institute of Standards and Technology before and after the enactment of this legislation and the Stevenson-Wydler Act. It appears as though the enactment of Bayh-Dole and the Stevenson-Wydler Act were not sufficient to induce an increase in patenting at these labs. However, the establishment of financial incentive systems, embodied in passage of the Federal Technology Transfer Act, as well as the allocation of internal resources to support technology transfer, stimulated an increase in such activity.     

30 years after Bayh–Dole: Reassessing academic entrepreneurship

On the 30th anniversary of enactment of the Bayh–Dole Act in the U.S., we consider the rationale for academic entrepreneurship and describe the evolving role of universities in the commercialization of research. We also discuss and appraise the effects of legislative reform in several OECD countries relating to academic entrepreneurship. The article synthesizes papers from the special section and outlines an agenda for additional research on various aspects of academic entrepreneurship in terms of system, university and individual levels. We also consider measurement and methodological issues that must be addressed in additional research.     

The impact of entrepreneurial capacity, experience and organizational support on academic entrepreneurship

Although sources and determinants of academic entrepreneurship have begun to command the attention of policy-makers and researchers, there remain many unanswered questions about how individual and social factors shape the decisions of academics to engage in entrepreneurial activities. Using a large-scale panel of academics from a variety of UK universities from 2001 to 2009, this paper examines how an academics’ level of entrepreneurial capacity in terms of opportunity recognition capacity, and their prior entrepreneurial experience shape the likelihood of them being involved in starting up a new venture. In addition, we explore what role university Technology Transfer Offices (TTOs) play in stimulating venture creation. The results show that individual-level attributes and experience are the most important predictors of academic entrepreneurship. We also find that the social environment surrounding the academic also plays an influential role, but its role is much less pronounced than individual-level factors. Finally, we show that the activities of the TTO play only a marginal, indirect role, in driving academics to start new ventures. We explore the implications of this analysis for policy and organizational design for academic entrepreneurship.     

US faculty patenting: Inside and outside the university

In a sample of 5811 patents with US faculty as inventors, 26% are assigned solely to firms rather than universities as dictated by US university employment policies and Bayh-Dole. We relate assignment to patent characteristics, university policy, and inventor field. Patents assigned to firms (whether established or start-ups with inventor as principal) are less basic than those assigned to universities suggesting firm assigned patents result from faculty consulting. Assignment to inventor-related start-ups is less likely the higher the share of revenue inventors receive from university-licensed patents. Firm assignment also varies by inventor field and whether the university is public or private.     

Has the Bayh-Dole act compromised basic research?

We examine three hypotheses regarding the effects of the Bayh-Dole Act on research effort of faculty. The first hypothesis we call the status quo hypothesis and it asserts that there has been no effect on research profiles. The second hypothesis, which we call the negative hypothesis, asserts that faculty have been diverted from their traditional role in basic research toward research with more commercial potential. Our final hypothesis is derived from prior theoretical work that suggests that both basic and applied research is greater when faculty can benefit from commercialization of their research effort; we refer to this as the positive hypothesis. The data we examine are the research and invention disclosure of faculty at 8 US universities over the period 1983–1999. Using a citation based measure of basic research publications we relate basic research effort to invention disclosures. Our findings are clear in that they do not show any support for the negative hypothesis and they show substantially greater support for the positive hypothesis than for the status quo hypothesis.     

The effectiveness of university knowledge spillovers: Performance differences between university spinoffs and corporate spinoffs

While much prior research has focused upon how the Technology Transfer Offices (TTOs) and other contextual characteristics shape the level of university spinoffs (USO), there is little research on entrepreneurial potential among individual academics, and to the best of our knowledge, no comparative studies with other types of spinoffs exist to date. In this paper we focus on an important but neglected aspect of knowledge transfer from academic research involving the indirect flow to entrepreneurship by individuals with a university education background who become involved in new venture creation by means of corporate spinoffs (CSO) after gaining industrial experience, rather than leaving university employment to found a new venture as an academic spinoff. We argue that the commercial knowledge gained by industry experience is potentially more valuable for entrepreneurial performance compared to the academic knowledge gained by additional research experience at a university. This leads us to posit that the average performance of CSOs will be higher than comparable USOs, but the gains from founder‘s prior experiences will be relatively higher among USOs whose founders lack the corporate context. We investigate these propositions in a comparative study tracking the complete population of USOs and CSOs among the Swedish knowledge-intensive sectors between 1994 and 2002.     

Estimates of patent rents from firm market value

The value of patent rents is an important quantity for policy analysis. However, estimates in the literature based on patent renewals might be understated. Market value regressions could provide validation, but they have not had clear theoretical foundations for estimating patent rents. I develop a simple model to make upper-bound estimates of patent rents using regressions on Tobin's Q. I test this on a sample of US firms and find it robust to a variety of considerations. Estimates from market value regressions correspond well with estimates based on patentee behavior generally, but renewal estimates might be understated for pharmaceuticals.     

Complements or substitutes? The role of universities and local context in supporting the creation of academic spin-offs

In this paper, we analyze the extent to which University-Level Support Mechanisms (ULSMs) and Local-Context Support Mechanisms (LCSMs) complement or substitute for each other in fostering the creation of academic spin-offs. Using a sample of 404 companies spun off from the 64 Italian Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics universities (STEM universities) over the 2000–2007 period, we show that the ULSMs’ marginal effect on universities’ spin-off productivity may be positive or negative depending on the contribution offered by different LCSMs. Specifically, in any given region, ULSMs complement the legislative support offered to high-tech entrepreneurship whereas they have a substitution effect with regard to the amount of regional social capital, regional financial development, the presence of a regional business incubator, regional public R&D expenses as well as the level of innovative performance in the region. Results support the idea that regional settings’ idiosyncrasies should be considered for universities to develop effective spin-off support policies. This paper contributes to the debate on the evaluation of economic policies supporting entrepreneurship.     

How to play the “Names Game”: Patent retrieval comparing different heuristics

Patent statistics represent a critical tool for scholars, statisticians and policy makers interested in innovation and intellectual property rights. Many analyses are based on heterogeneous methods delineating the inventors’ or firms’ patent portfolios without questioning the quality of the method employed. We assess different heuristics in order to provide a robust solution to automatically retrieve inventors in large patent datasets (PATSTAT). The solution we propose reduces the usual errors by 50% and casts doubts on the reliability of statistical indicators and micro-econometric results based on common matching procedures. Guidelines for researchers, TTOs, firms, venture capitalists and policy makers likely to implement a names game or to comment on results based on a names game are also provided.     

If star scientists do not patent: The effect of productivity, basicness and impact on the decision to patent in the academic world

We run an Event History Analysis on a sample of Italian researchers in the field of Materials Science, aiming at understanding how the characteristics of the research trajectories followed by scientists in academia affect their opportunities to do development of industrial applications. Results of our estimates suggest that all measures of academic performances have a dual effect, although different in magnitude. Scientists that are moving along applied research trajectories find it easier to produce industrial applications than their colleagues engaged in the quest for very fundamental understanding. We interpret our results by suggesting that, for the former, more academic research results in more exploitable results, hence in more chances to patent; for the latter, more academic research makes it just more unlikely that they will find the time to produce industrial applications. Similar results apply for the low versus high research impact.     

The effects of knowledge management on innovative success – An empirical analysis of German firms

The aim of this paper is to analyse the effects of knowledge management on the innovation success of firms in Germany. We look at innovative firms in the period from 2000 to 2002 taken from the Mannheim Innovation Panel and estimate the effect of collaborative measures of knowledge management on the immediate economic success of different types of innovations. The results of our matching analysis reveal that firms which apply knowledge management perform better in terms of higher-than-average shares of turnover with innovative products compared to their twins. We do not find a significant effect of knowledge management on the share of cost reductions with process innovation.     

Knowledge coherence, variety and economic growth: Manufacturing evidence from Italian regions

This paper elaborates a view on knowledge as a result of a combinatorial search activity, so as to investigate its effects on economic growth at the regional level. Empirical estimations corroborate the hypothesis that knowledge coherence and variety, besides the traditional measure of knowledge stock, matter in shaping regional economic performances. The check for spatial dependence suggests that cross-regional externalities exert additional triggering effects on growth, without debasing the effects of knowledge properties. Important policy implications stem from the analysis, in that regional innovation strategies should be carefully coordinated so as to reach a higher degree of internal coherence and trigger economic performances.     

Does inventor ownership encourage university research-derived entrepreneurship? A six university comparison

This paper examines whether university ownership of inventions made by its personnel best serves the widely held social goals of encouraging technology commercialization and entrepreneurship. Using a hand-collected census of technology-based university spin-offs from six universities, one of which is the University of Waterloo and the only inventor ownership university in North America, we compare the number and type of spin-offs produced by these universities. We find suggestive evidence that inventor ownership universities can be more efficient in generating spin-offs on both per faculty and per R&D dollar expended perspective. We find that the field of computer sciences and electrical engineering generates a greater number of spin-offs than do our other two categories – the biomedical sciences, and the field of engineering and the physical sciences. In general, our results demonstrate that inventor ownership can be extremely productive of spin-offs. From these results, we suggest that governments seeking to encourage university invention commercialization and entrepreneurship should experiment with an inventor ownership system.     

Assessing the impact of organizational practices on the relative productivity of university technology transfer offices: an exploratory study

We present quantitative and qualitative evidence on the relative productivity of university technology transfer offices (TTOs). Our empirical results suggest that TTO activity is characterized by constant returns to scale and that environmental and institutional factors explain some of the variation in performance. Productivity may also depend on organizational practices. Unfortunately, there are no quantitative measures available on such practices, so we rely on inductive, qualitative methods to identify them. Based on 55 interviews of 98 entrepreneurs, scientists, and administrators at five research universities, we conclude that the most critical organizational factors are faculty reward systems, TTO staffing/compensation practices, and cultural barriers between universities and firms.     

Globalization of R&D by US-based multinational enterprises

This paper examines patterns and determinants of overseas R&D investment by US-based manufacturing MNEs using a new panel dataset over the period 1990–2004. The analysis reveals that R&D intensity of operation of US MNE affiliates is determined mainly by the domestic market size, overall R&D capability and cost of hiring R&D personnel. There is no evidence to suggest that R&D specific incentives have a significant impact on inter-country differences in R&D intensity when controlled for other relevant variables. Overall, our findings cast doubts on the efficacy of efforts by host country governments to entice MNE affiliates to engage in domestic R&D activity, in a context where R&D is becoming a truly global activity.     

The Bayh-Dole Act and scientist entrepreneurship

Much of the literature examining the impact of the Bayh-Dole Act has been based on the impact on patenting and licensing activities emanating from offices of technology transfer. Studies based on data generated by offices of technology transfer, suggest a paucity of entrepreneurial activity from university scientists in the form on new startups. There are, however, compelling reasons to suspect that the TTO generated data may not measure all, or even most of scientist entrepreneurship. Rather than relying on measures of scientist entrepreneurship reported by the TTO and compiled by AUTM, this study instead develops alternative measures based on the commercialization activities reported by scientists. In particular, the purpose of this paper is to provide a measure of scientist entrepreneurship and identify which factors are conducive to scientist entrepreneurship and which factors inhibit scientist entrepreneurship. This enables us to compare how scientist entrepreneurship differs from that which has been established in the literature for the more general population. We do this by developing a new database measuring the propensity of scientists funded by grants from the National Cancer Institute (NCI) to commercialize their research as well as the mode of commercialization. We then subject this new university scientist-based data set to empirical scrutiny to ascertain which factors influence both the propensity for scientists to become an entrepreneur. The results suggest that scientist entrepreneurship may be considerably more robust than has generally been indicated in studies based on TTO data.     

The impact of academic patenting on university research and its transfer

This paper contributes to the ongoing debate on the impact of academic patenting on publishing and knowledge transfer. Drawing upon two separate surveys of academics, and their CV information, we provide empirical evidence for UK academics in engineering and physical sciences. The contribution of this paper is two-fold. First, our findings show that (the intensity of) academic patenting complements publishing up to a certain level of patenting output, after which we find evidence of a substitution effect. We also find weak evidence of important differences across scientific fields with the more basic-oriented fields showing indications of a crowding-out effect. Second, our analysis of the potential impact of patenting on knowledge transfer shows a positive correlation between the stock of patents and engagement in knowledge transfer channels. However, we find that a substitution effect sets in, indicating an inverted U-shaped relationship between patenting and several knowledge transfer channels.     

University patenting and its effects on academic research: The emerging European evidence

This paper surveys the existing fragmentary data on the growth of university-owned patents and university-invented patents in Europe. We find evidence that university patenting is growing, but this phenomenon remains heterogeneous across countries and disciplines. We found some evidence that university licensing is not profitable for most universities, although some do succeed in attracting substantial additional revenues. This might be due to the fact that patents and publications tend to go hand in hand. In a dynamic setting however, we fear that the increase in university patenting exacerbates differences across universities in terms of financial resources and research outcome.     

The impact of cognitive communities on the diffusion of academic knowledge: Evidence from the networks of inventors of a French university

Looking at micro-data on the networks of inventors of a French science university, we investigate whether the kind of cognitive relationships between researchers influences the geography of their collaborations.The hypothesis we test (and confirm empirically) is that academic knowledge diffuses in a restricted geographic area when the connected researchers belong to epistemic communities, whereas communities of practice entail less localised effects. We also show that institutionally mixed research teams do not impede large knowledge diffusion.     

Resources, capabilities, risk capital and the creation of university spin-out companies

The commercialization of university research has become an increasingly important issue, given concerns regarding licensing and the university's desire to maximize the returns to intellectual property (IP). In this paper, we assess the impact of university resources and routines/capabilities on the creation of spin-out companies. We find that both the number of spin-out companies created and the number of spin-out companies created with equity investment are significantly positively associated with expenditure on intellectual property protection, the business development capabilities of technology transfer offices and the royalty regime of the university. These results highlight the importance not just of resource stocks, but also of developing appropriate capabilities of technology transfer officers in spinning-out companies. The results suggest that universities and policy-makers need to devote attention to the training and recruitment of technology officers with the broad base of commercial skills.