Template-type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0
Author-Name: Lawson, Cornelia
Author-Email: cornelia.meissner@unito.it 
Author-Workplace-Name: University of Turin
Author-Workplace-Homepage: http://www.est.unito.it/
Title: Academic inventions outside the university: A result of industry sponsorship or entrepreneurial activities?
Abstract:This paper investigates the link between firms and academic inventors on firm-assigned academic patents 
for a sample of UK academics. The first descriptive results show that 43% of firm assigned patents are in fact 
owned by a university spin-off. The empirical analysis finds that a strong appropriation regime at a university 
encourages patents owned by the university or its spin-offs. Public research funds and technology transfer grants 
are also associated with university or spin-off owned patent s. Government incentives and funding regulations 
thus are a successful strategy to encourage and maintain university ownership of patents. Industry sponsorship on 
the other hand encourages firm ownership of patents, whether these are private firms or university spin-offs. 
A more detailed analysis of funding links shows that 41% of non-spin-off firms also have funding agreements with 
the university; however, the remaining 59% of firms have no apparent link to researchers that could explain 
ownership of university inventions. 
Length: 25 pages
Creation-Date: 2012-09
File-URL:http://www.est.unito.it/do/home.pl/Download?doc=/allegati_wp/wp2012dip_l_b/16_wp_momigliano.pdf
File-Format: Application/PDF
Handle: RePEc:uto:labeco:201216