What Determines University Patent
Commercialization?
Empirical Evidence on the Role of
University IPR ownership
Paola Giuri, Federico Munari, Martina Pasquini
Department of Management, University of Bologna
• Financial support from the EC project 217299 InnoS&T and from the EIBURS programme of the EIB (FinKT
project) is gratefully acknowledged.
Federico Munari – University of Bologna
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Objectives of the paper
1) Understand whether and how the ownership of IPRs by
universities and PROs affects their subsequent commercialization
2) Identify other relevant factors influencing the commercialization
of university and PRO patents
by considering three exploitation routes:
• Patent sale
• Licensing
• Spin-off formation
Empirical evidence from a sample of 858 EPO patents with
inventors employed by universities and PROs in 23 countries
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Motivations of the study
• The need to enhance patent valorization for growth and jobs
(EC working
document, 2012).
• The “Innovation Union” initiative emphasizes the need to improve the
economic exploitation of unused IPRs (Europe 2020).
• With specific regards to universities and PROs, several reforms over the last
two decades have tried to foster the commercialization of research results
(Henderson et al., 1998; Wright et al., 2003; Coupe, 2003; Mowery and Ziedonis, 2002;
Sapsalis et al. 2006).
• Implementation of Bay-Dole like reforms in various European countries
moving towards institutional ownership of academic inventions (Rossi and
Geuna, 2011)
• However, there is little or no empirical evidence assessing the effects of
such reforms on the commercial exploitation of university and PRO
inventions.
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Background Literature:
The reforms of University IPRs regimes
• In the US, the turning point was the Bayh-Dole Act (1980)
• In Europe, several reforms have been introduced since the late 1990s. Most
European countries moved towards a system of institutional ownership (e.g.
Baldini, 2006; Della Malva et al., 2008; Meyer and Tang, 2007; Geuna and Rossi, 2011)
• Significant heterogeneity remains across and within European countries,
also due to specific university bylaws.
Institutional
ownership regime
Professors’
privilege regime
• The university maintains
the ownership of patents
resulting from publiclyfunded research
• The researcher maintains
the ownership of patents
resulting from publiclyfunded research
• i.e Most European countries
• i.e. Italy, Sweden
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Literature: university IPR ownership and impact on 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).
Universityowned
patents
• Patents generated by an academic
inventor and owned by the university
employing the academic inventor
Universityinvented
patents
• Patents generated by an academic
inventor and not owned by the university
employing the academic inventor
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Literature: university IPR ownership and the efficacy of
TT activities
• Both university-invented and university-owned patents have increased
(e.g. Baldini, 2006; Della Malva et al., 2008; Meyer and Tang, 2007; Tang, 2008)
• A high percentage of academic patents still remained owned by private
businesses (Geuna and Rossi, 2011; Lissoni, 2012)
• Mixed evidence on the number of forward citations per universityowned patent as compared to company-owned academic patents
(Czarnitzki et al., 2011; Lissoni et al., 2010)
• The study by Crespi et al. (2010) on a sample of European university
and PRO patents from the period 1993-1997 does not find significant
evidence of a university ownership effect on the commercialization of
patents
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Our study: research questions and intended contributions
1) Does the ownership of patents on university or PRO research
(university-owned vs. university-invented) impact on the final
commercialization outcome?
2) Are there significant differences depending on the type of exploitation
route adopted (sale, license, spin-off formation)?
3) Is the relationship between university IPR ownership and commercial
exploitation influenced by the type of national IPR legislation on
university patents (institutional ownership regime vs. professors’
privilege)?
4) Which other factors (scientific background of the invention, incentive
systems, funding sources) affect the commercialization outcome?
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Sample
•
We used data from the PatVal-EU II survey 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 in the PatVal-EU
II dataset, corresponding to a corrected response rate of 20%.
•
Of these, 1310 patents (6% of the total) refer to inventors employed in
universities or PROs at the time of the invention.
•
Our final sample is represented by 858 patents (out of 1310) from university
and PRO inventors, due to missing information on some covariates.
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Sample
Distribution of sample patents by affiliation
of the inventor
Distribution of sample patents by country
Affiliation of the inventor
University
PRO
%
63.4
36.6
Total
100%
Distribution of sample patents across OST 6
technological sectors
Sector
Electrical engineering
Instruments
Chemistry, Pharma
Process Engineering,
Special Equipment
Mechanical Engineering
Consumption (Consumer
goods, Construction)
Total
%
17.45
24.06
39.98
9.2
6.13
3.18
Country
AT
BE
CH
CZ
DE
DK
ES
FI
FR
GB
GR
HU
IE
IL
IT
JP
NL
NO
PL
SE
SI
US
%
0.94%
2.12%
2.36%
0.71%
18.63%
0.94%
2.59%
0.94%
14.98%
6.37%
0.47%
0.24%
1.18%
1.77%
8.37%
15.80%
4.60%
0.35%
0.83%
1.89%
0.94%
12.97%
Total
100.00%
100
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Dependent and Explanatory Variables
DEPENDENT VARIABLES
DEFINITIONS
Patent Sale
Dummy variable equal 1if the patent has been sold at the time of the survey, and
0 otherwise
Patent Licensing
Dummy variable equal 1 if the patent has been licensed, and 0 otherwise
Spin-off Formation
Dummy variable equal 1 if the patent has been used to form a spin-off, and 0
otherwise
External Use
A dummy variable equal to 1 if the patent has been externally used (sale or
license or spin-off), 0 if it was not used
EXPLANATORY VARIABLES
University-owned patent
Dummy variable equal to 1 if the patent was owned by the university that
employed the inventor, and 0 otherwise
PRO-owned patent
Dummy variable equal to 1 if the patent was owned by PRO that employed the
inventor, and 0 otherwise
PRO-invented patent
Dummy variable equal to 1 if the patent was not owned by PRO that employed
the inventor, and 0 otherwise
Institutional ownership regime
Dummy variable equal to 1 if the inventor’s country adopted the institutional
ownership regime of university patents, and 0 otherwise
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Control Variables
-- Inventors’ characteristics: age, experience, number of scientific
publications related to the inventions
-- Financing resources used to generate the invention: internal resources,
EU, VCs, bank loan, suppliers, customers
-- Available incentive systems for inventions: influence for promotion, salary
increase, one-lump payment.
-- Country and technology dummies (5 OST macro sectors)
Sources of data: PatVal II survey
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Descriptive statistics: main findings
• Our descriptive analyses suggest that the share of university/PRO owned
patents, as compared to university/PRO invented patents, has significantly
increased over the last decade.
• However, a large share of university patents in our sample are still not owned
by universities (46%).
• There is not a large difference between university/PRO owned patens vs.
university/PRO invented patents in the overall likelihood of external
commercialization (via sale or license or spin-off).
• However, the results suggest the need to distinguish the different modes of
commercialization in order to more clearly understand the impact of
university ownership. In particular, university/PRO ownership seems to be
positively associated to licensing.
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Descriptive statistics: main findings
• Moreover, the analyses suggest that it is important to distinguish
universities and PROs, since they seem characterized by different
commercialization patterns.
• The positive impact of the direct ownership of patents is
particularly pronounced in the case of universities. In the subsample
of university patents, the commercialization of university-owned
patents seems more frequent than for university-invented patents
(expecially for what concern the licensing route).
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Descriptive results: the ownership patterns of
university and PRO patents
Patval II
Patval II
Patval I (Crespi
et al., 2010)
N. Countries
22
6
6
Priority dates
2003-2005
2003-2005
1993-1997
54%
55%
18%
46%
45%
82%
PRO-owned
79%
81%
42%
PRO-invented
21%
19%
58%
Universityowned
Universityinvented
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Descriptive statistics: the commercialization of
university/PRO patents according to the type of owners
All patents (n=858)
University/PRO-owned
University/PRO-invented
University patents (n=521)
University-owned
University-invented
PRO patents (n=337)
PRO-owned
PRO-invented
Non-commercialized
Patents
Commercialized
Patents
Sale
Licensing
Spin-off
66.67%
33.33%
7.65%
25.95%
14.75%
26.86%
11.33%
11.97%
14.89%
Commercialized
Patents
Sale
Licensing
Spin-off
46.07%
13.21%
34.29%
21.79%
72.71%
27.39%
12.45%
11.62%
14.52%
Non-commercialized
Patents
Commercialized
Patents
Sale
Licensing
Spin-off
20.07%
1.90%
15.24%
7.43%
25.00%
7.35%
13.23%
16.17%
73.14%
Non-commercialized
Patents
53.93%
79.93%
75.00%
Multiple answers on type of use were possible.
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University IPR ownership regimes in the different countries in the
period of the study (2003-2005)
Professor’s
Privilege
Finland
Italy
Sweden
Slovenia
Hungary
Institutional IPR
regime
Austria
Belgium
Czec Republic
Denmark
France
Ireland
Israel
Japan
Poland
Switzerland
Spain
United Kingdom
United States
Germany
Greece
Netherlands
Source:
Geuna and Rossi (2011)
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Descriptive statistics: the commercialization of university/PRO
patents according to the national regime on university IPRs
Non-commercialized
Commercialized
Patents
Patents
Institutional Ownership
69.19%
Professor’s Privilege
All patents (n=858)
30.81%
Sale
7.96%
Licensing
21.11%
Spinoff
14.47%
67.62%
32.38%
16.19%
14.28%
17.14%
Institutional Ownership
62.16%
37.84%
11.93%
25.67%
18.01%
Professor’s Privilege
64.94%
35.06%
18.18%
13.00%
20.78%
Institutional Ownership
79.29%
20.71%
2.27%
14.56%
9.38%
Professor’s Privilege
75.00%
25.00%
10.71%
17.85%
7.15%
University patents (n=521)
PRO patents (n=337)
Multiple answers on type of use were possible.
* External use = sale or license or spin-off.
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Regression results: main findings
• We estimate multivariate probit regression models in order to
control for the influence of other factors which might impact on
patent commercialization.
• The results of regression analyses on the whole sample of
university/PRO patents confirm that patents owned by universities
are more likely to be licensed.
• However, once controlling for other factors, PRO owned patents are
less likely to be exploited through direct sale or spin-off formation.
• Institutional ownership regime has only a negative and significant
effect on the probability of selling the patent
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Regression results: main findings
• The number of scientific articles at the basis of the patent is
positively associated to licensing or spin-off formation.
• The existence of an incentive system based on ad hoc payments is
positively associated to all types of commercialization.
• The funding sources exploited for the patented invention have a
significant impact: the use of funding from external sources
(external firms, customers, suppliers) and the receipt of VC funding
are associated to a higher likelihood of sale of spin-off formation.
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Policy implications
• Our analyses suggest that the share of university owned patents (as
compared to university invented patents) has significantly increased
over the last decade. The reforms towards institutional ownership
regimes seem to had an impact in this respect.
• A large share of university and PRO patents still remain commercially
unexploited. Need to understand in more depth the barriers to
commercialization.
• In our data, PRO patents tend to have significantly different
commercialization rates as compared to university patents. Further
evidence is needed on this point. Most of the attention of academic
research has been devoted to universities, less to PROs.
• Further analyses (not reported here) show that US patents in our sample
tend to have significantly higher licensing rates than European patents
(differences in terms of sale and spin-off formation are less pronounced),
suggesting the existence of a gap in this respect.
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Policy implications
• We provide evidence-based support for a positive impact of
university ownership on licensing, less for the other two forms
of commercialization.
• Our results thus suggest the need to disentangle the different
forms of exploitation.
• Our results suggest that inventions more intensively rooted in
science tend to have higher commercialization outcomes. Need to
strengthen the university/PRO position in science in order to
promote technology transfer.
• The financial sources adopted to generate the patented invention
do affect commercialization results. Importance of implementing
adequate financial instruments to support technology transfer
and address the existence of funding gaps.
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The FinKT project: objectives
• Overall goal: to map and analyse the financial instruments and the forms of
partnerships between financial investors and universities/PROs that can
facilitate technology transfer in Europe
• The project is undertaken by the Department of Management of the
University of Bologna, in collaboration with Bocconi University (Duration:
Mar 2012-Feb 2015)
• The project is funded by the European Investment Bank, under the
EIBURS measure
• Project website: finkt.unibo.it
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Contacts and project website
Project website: finkt.unibo.it
Federico Munari, federico.munari@unibo.it
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