What determines University Patent Commercialization? Empirical Evidence on the role of University IPR Ownership

1. What determines University Patent Commercialization? Empirical Evidence on the role of University IPR Ownership Paola Giuri, Federico Munari University of Bologna

2. 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 2

3. 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 3

4. 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 qualityof 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) 4

5. 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; Lissoniet al., 2010) 5

6. 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) 6

7. Research questions and intended contributions Does the ownership of patents on university research impact on the final commercialization outcome? 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? Is the relationship between university IPR ownership and commercial exploitation moderated by the type of national IPR legislation on university patents? 7

8. 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. 8

9. Dependent and explanatory variables 9

10. 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 10

11. The identification of national IPR regimes (Geuna and Rossi, 2012) • We followed the classification by Geuna and Rossi (2012) and identified 3 different national legislative regimes regarding the ownership of university IPRs 11 11

12. Ownership patterns of University/PRO patents • 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 12

13. Patent ownership and commercialization outcomes: descriptive statistics 13

14. Legislations on university patents and commercialization outcomes: descriptive statistics 14

15. Preliminary regression results: probit models (university patents) 15

16. Preliminary regression results: probit models(All sample)

17. Preliminary regression results: probit models (university patents) 17

18. 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 (Shangaiand 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 18

19. 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 19