What determines University Patent
Commercialization? Empirical Evidence on the role
of University IPR Ownership
Paola Giuri, Federico Munari
University of Bologna
Paola Giuri, Federico Munari – FinKT Project
Research objectives
•
This paper analyzes
• whether and how the ownership of IPRs by universities and PROs
affect their subsequent commercialization
by considering three exploitation routes:
• Patent sales
• Licensing
• Spin-off formation
• Empirical evidence from a sample of 1297 EPO patents with
inventors employed by universities and PROs in 23 countries
Paola Giuri, Federico Munari – FinKT project
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FinKT Project:
Financing Knowledge Transfer in Europe
•
The project “Financing Knowledge Transfer in Europe”
(FinKT), funded by the European Investment Bank under the
EIBURS measure, investigates the role of financial institutions
and financial instruments to support the transfer of technology
from University to the industry.
•
It is undertaken by the Department of Management of the
University of Bologna, in collaboration with Bocconi University
•
Project website: www.finkt.unibo.it
Paola Giuri, Federico Munari – FinKT project
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Background: Institutional reforms and academic
patenting
•
Analysis of main changes in legislation governing university IPR
ownership (i.e. Geuna and Rossi, 2011)
• Distribution of academic scientists’ patenting activities in
different countries (Lissoni et al., 2008; Baldini et al., 2008)
• The factors explaining the assignment of academic-invented
patents to universities (Thursby et al., 2009; Markman et al., 2008)
• The quality of university patents after the reforms (Mowery et al.,
2005)
• The role of TTOs, structures and procedures to foster academic
patenting (Siegel et al., 2007; Meyer and Tang, 2007)
Paola Giuri, Federico Munari – FinKT project
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University IPR ownership and the efficacy of TT
activities
 Empirical evidence on the consequences of university IPR
ownership patterns on the success of technology transfer
activities is still limited (Shane, 2001; Crespi et al., 2010).
• Focus on single countries or on successful organizations (i.e. MIT)
• Focus at the university level, less at the invention level
 The study by Crespi et al. (2010) does not find evidence of a
university ownership effect the commercialization of patents
 Mixed evidence on the impact of university-owned patents, as
measured by number of forward citations (Callaert et al.,
2012; Lissoni et al., 2010)
Paola Giuri, Federico Munari – FinKT project
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University IPR ownership and TT efficacy: research gaps
• Most studies have referred either to licensing deals or to
academic spin-offs --> no attention devoted to patent sale
• Existing studies have observed only actual outcomes --> no
attention devoted to the intentions or plans to transfer IP
(Gambardella et al. 2007)
• No attention on the effects of national legislations related to
university patent ownership (i.e institutional vs. inventor
ownership) (Geuna and Rossi, 2012)
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Research questions and intended contributions
1) Does the ownership of patents on university research impact
on the final commercialization outcome?
2) Are there significant differences - depending on the type of
ownership patterns - in the willingness to commercially use
university patent as compared to their actual use?
3) Is the relationship between university IPR ownership and
commercial exploitation moderated by the type of national
IPR legislation on university patents?
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Sample
• We use data from the PatVal-EU II surveys of inventors of
EPO patents with priority dates in 2003-2005 in 20
European countries, US, Japan and Israel.
• 22,533 responses by the inventors in all surveyed
countries, corresponding to a corrected response rate of
20%.
• Of these, 1297 patents (6% of the total) refer to inventors
employed in universities or PROs at the time of the
invention.
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Dependent and explanatory variables
Variable
Name
Definition
Source
Dependent variables capturing the external use of patents
License
A dummy variable equal to 1 if the patent was licensed, 0 if it was
not licensed
PatVal II
Sale
A dummy variable equal to 1 if the patent was sold, 0 if it was not
sold
PatVal II
Spin-off
A dummy variable equal to 1 if the patent was used to create a
spin-off, 0 if it was not used
PatVal II
External use
A dummy variable equal to 1 if the patent was externally used
(sale or license or spin-off), 0 if it was not used
PatVal II
Explanatory variables capturing university IPR ownership
University_inve
nted
A dummy variable equal to 1 if the patent was NOT owned by the
University that employed the inventor, and 0 otherwise
PatVal II
University_IPR
regime
A dummy variable equal to 1 if the inventor’s country adopted the
institutional ownership regime of university patents, and 0
otherwise
Rossi and Geuna,
2012;
Mixed_IPR
regime
A dummy variable equal to 1 if the inventor’s country adopted an
hybrid regime on university patents, and 0 otherwise
Rossi and Geuna,
2012;
Paola Giuri, Federico Munari – FinKT project
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Control variables
Current version
• Number of scientific publications related to the patent (log)
• Dummies for sources of funding for the invention
• Technological Sector dummies
• Country dummies
Next steps
• Control variables at the level of the inventor, invention
process, patent characteristics, applicant characteristics,
university scientific ranking and patenting levels
Paola Giuri, Federico Munari – FinKT project
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The identification of national IPR regimes (Geuna
and Rossi, 2012)
1. We followed the classification by Geuna and Rossi (2012) and
identified 3 different national legislative regimes regarding the
ownership of university IPRs
Inventor Ownership
Regime
Finland
Italy
Sweden
Slovenia
Hungary
University Ownership
Regime
Mixed Regime
Austria
Germany
Belgium
Greece
Czec Republic
Netherlands
Denmark
France
Ireland
Israel
Japan
Poland
Switzerland
Spain
United Kingdom
United States
Paola Giuri, Federico Munari – FinKT project
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Ownership patterns of University/PRO patents
1. With respect to the paper by Crespi et al, (2010), we find a
significant increase in the shares of patents owned by universities
and PROs
Authors
N. Countries
Priority dates
% University Owned
% University Invented
% PRO Owned
% PRO Invented
Giuri and Munari, 2012 Giuri and Munari, 2012 Crespi et al., 2010
23
6
6
2003-2005
2003-2005
1993-1997
44%
56%
76%
24%
45%
55%
85%
15%
Paola Giuri, Federico Munari – FinKT project
18%
82%
42%
58%
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Patent ownership and commercialization
outcomes: descriptive statistics
All patents
Sale
University/PRO Owned
University/PRO Invented
Total
8.32%
13.15%
10.32%
Only University patents
Sale
University Owned
University Invented
Total
14.39%
15.02%
14.71%
Only PRO patents
Sale
PRO Owned
PRO Invented
Total
2.21%
7.35%
3.40%
License
27.59%
17.95%
23.71%
License
36.98%
17.37%
27.29%
License
19.13%
17.39%
18.73%
Paola Giuri, Federico Munari – FinKT project
Spin-off
14.54%
15.93%
15.13%
Spin-off
23.30%
15.21%
19.05%
Spin-off
5.71%
13.33%
7.50%
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Legislations on university patents and
commercialization outcomes: descriptive statistics
All patents
Sale
Inventor Ownership regime
University Ownership regime
Mixed regime
Total
18.26%
7.86%
12.44%
10.25%
University patents
Sale
License
Spin-off
20.48%
11.90%
18.55%
14.64%
13.58%
32.66%
19.83%
27.07%
16.49%
21.30%
13.08%
18.79%
Inventor Ownership regime
University Ownership regime
Mixed regime
Total
License
16.81%
25.47%
22.22%
23.65%
Paola Giuri, Federico Munari – FinKT project
Spin-off
15.04%
16.54%
9.96%
14.83%
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Preliminary regression results: probit models
(university patents)
University_ownership_regime
Mixed_regime
University invented patent
Scientific publications related to patent
Fund_internal
Fund_government
Fund_other unaffiliated org
Fund_customer_user
Fund_supplier
Fund_VC
Fund_bank
Fund_other
_cons
Technology Dummies
N
License
0.38*
0.04
-0.60***
Sale
-0.57***
-0.17
0.07
Spin-off
0.04
-0.27
-0.25**
0.18***
-0.1
0.14
-0.23
-0.2
0.02
0.69**
-0.23
0.05
-0.64*
YES
-0.05
-0.28*
0.35**
0.24
0.57**
0.17
0.98***
-0.06
0.12
-0.96***
YES
0.07
-0.19
-0.04
-0.14
-0.24
-0.12
0.55*
-0.23
-0.16
-0.65**
YES
527
531
595
Paola Giuri, Federico Munari – FinKT project
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Preliminary regression results: probit models
(All sample)
University_ownership_regime
Mixed_regime
Applicant not PRO/Univ
License
0.12
0
-0.36***
Sale
-0.64***
-0.24
0.29**
Spin-off
0
-0.25
0.01
Scientific publications related to patent
Fund_internal
Fund_government
Fund_other unaffiliated org
Fund_customer_user
Fund_supplier
Fund_VC
Fund_bank
Fund_other
_cons
Technology Dummies
N
0.17***
-0.14
0
-0.23
0.24
-0.02
0.46*
(omitted)
0.06
-0.52**
YES
870
-0.01
-0.2
0.29*
0.2
0.36
0.27
1.01***
0.16
0.21
-1.06***
YES
889
0.14**
-0.1
0.04
-0.07
-0.07
0.04
0.58**
-0.02
0.08
-1.00***
YES
963
Paola Giuri, Federico Munari – FinKT project
Preliminary regression results: probit models
(university patents)
University_ownership_regime
Mixed_regime
University invented patent
License
0.38*
0.04
-0.60***
Sale
-0.57***
-0.17
0.07
Spin-off
0.04
-0.27
-0.25**
Scientific publications related to patent
Fund_internal
Fund_government
Fund_other unaffiliated org
Fund_customer_user
Fund_supplier
Fund_VC
Fund_bank
Fund_other
_cons
FR
GB
JP
US
University_ownership_small countries
IT
Inventor_ownership_small countries
NL
N
0.18***
-0.1
0.14
-0.23
-0.2
0.02
0.69**
(omitted)
0.05
-0.64*
-0.36
0.3
-0.45*
1.12***
-0.02
0.06
-0.48
-0.1
527
-0.05
-0.28*
0.35**
0.24
0.57**
0.17
0.98***
-0.06
0.12
-0.96***
-0.82**
-0.01
-0.64**
-0.33
-0.60**
0.1
0.22
-0.08
531
0.07
-0.19
-0.04
-0.14
-0.24
-0.12
0.55*
-0.23
-0.16
-0.65**
-0.13
0.62**
-0.36
0.83***
0.17
0.09
0.60**
0.02
595
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Next steps
• Estimates of the probability of actual and potential licensing,
sale, spin-off (similar to Gambardella, Giuri, Luzzi 2007)
• In the sample of university patents, we will include controls for
scientific rankings of universities (Shangai and Leuven)
• We will try to control for the presence of TTO in the
universities/PRO and university orientation towards TT
activities (i.e. stock of owned patents)
• Explain multiple forms of external exploitation of patents (i.e.
licensing and spin-off), also through qualitative data and case
studies
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Conclusions
• Our preliminary analyses suggest that the share of university owned
patents, as compared to university invented patents, has significantly
increased over the last decade
• Mixed situations still exist. Need to understand in more detail the
impact of university bylaws, support structures (TTOs), incentive
systems, funding entities.
• Need to separate licensing and sale in order to more clearly
understand the impact of university ownership. University ownership
seems to be positively associated to licensing.
• Need to separate universities and PROs. PROs seem less effective
across all commercialization routes.
• Differences across countries according to the legislations on
university patents
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