Academic patent licenses: Roadblocks or signposts for nonlicensee cumulative innovation?

Kyriakos Drivas, Zhen Lei and Brian Wright ()

Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 2017, vol. 137, issue C, 282-303

Abstract: Academic inventions are key drivers of technical progress in modern economies, and exclusive licensing has become the dominant means of transfer to the private sector. However, the strong licensee incentives generated by exclusive academic licensing are generally assumed to come at the expense of discouragement or diversion of research by nonlicensees. Using data from university campuses and national research laboratories we find that, after exclusive licensing, forward citations by private sector nonlicensees actually increase. An unanticipated exclusive license appears to be a signpost pointing to commercially relevant innovation pathways that nonlicensees follow with successful patented research. Tests using multiple pre-license information disclosures support this signaling hypothesis.

Keywords: Intellectual property exclusive licensing; Academic invention; Innovation sequence; Technology transfer; Patent citations (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O31 O32 O33 O34 O38 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (15)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jeborg:v:137:y:2017:i:c:p:282-303

DOI: 10.1016/j.jebo.2017.03.018

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