Commercializing Academic Research: The Qaulity of Faculty Patenting

Dirk Czarnitzki, Katrin Hussinger () and Cédric Schneider
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Dirk Czarnitzki: Department of Economics, Copenhagen Business School, Postal: Department of Economics, Copenhagen Business School, Solbjerg Plads 3 C, 5. sal, DK-2000 Frederiksberg, Denmark

No 05-2008, Working Papers from Copenhagen Business School, Department of Economics

Abstract: The knowledge produced by academic scientists has been identified as a potential key driver of technological progress. Recent policies in Europe aim at increasing commercially orientated activities in academe. Based on a sample of German scientists across all fields of science we investigate the importance of academic patenting. Our findings suggest that academic involvement in patenting results in greater knowledge externalities, as academic patents appear to generate more forward citations. We also find that in the European context of changing research objectives and funding sources since the mid-90’s, the "importance” of academic patents declines over time. We show that academic entrants have patents of lower "quality” than academic incumbents but they did not cause the decline, since the relative importance of patents involving academics with an existing patenting history declined over time as well. Moreover, a preliminary evaluation of the effects of the abolishment of the "professor privilege” (the German counterpart of the U.S. Bayh-Dole Act) reveals that this legal disposition led to an acceleration of this apparent decline.

Keywords: na (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D23 I23 P48 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2008-01-01

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Working Paper: Commercializing Academic Research: The Quality of Faculty Patenting (2008)
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