While America relies foremost on its private sector for technological innovation, our universities also do their part in the innovation ecosystem. A news story from Thailand looks at the US model of commercializing university research under the Bayh-Dole Act of 1980, which allows research institutions to patent and license valuable R&D. Some scholars such as David Mowery from Berkeley credit Bayh-Dole with expanding technology transfer from universities to industry and enabling cross-sector R&D collaborations. Now, universities in Europe and Asia may be following the American innovation approach.

Many modern technologies began as university research projects, but “only the most diligent universities have exploited the value of such inventions.” Today, “US universities fully develop and commercialize students' innovations to the extent that they are major contributors to America's economic might.” One success story in commercializing university research is Google, founded by two PhD students at Stanford. As a “result of properly managed policies”, research the Stanford students worked on became the property of the school, which in turn licensed it back to Google. “When Google went public in 2004, the value of shares held by Stanford in return for the license exceeded $200 million.”

American university technology transfer is governed under Bayh-Dole, which “enables institutes to obtain protection for and commercially benefit from the results of research conducted using federal funds.” With the passage of Bayh-Dole, universities set up internal technology management offices to oversee the research, intellectual property and commercialization process. The article continues: “without the (Bayh-Dole) Act, many universities would have continued to squander and lose the benefits of years of research.” Recently, US universities filed 10,517 patents applications in one year and generated roughly $1.3 billion in royalties.

Some European and Asian universities are following the example of Bayh-Dole. The “the top three Chinese universities reportedly have applied for and obtained in excess of 5,000 patents. In Singapore, the Agency for Science Technology and Research is responsible for managing the intellectual property developed in Singapore's core national research institutes, creating an infrastructure that has propelled that country's biotechnology industry to the fore in Southeast Asia.”

posted by Noel Le @ 7:43 AM | Patents, Universities

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