IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/jindec/v61y2013i3p817-844.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Patents in the University: Priming the Pump and Crowding Out

Author

Listed:
  • Suzanne Scotchmer

Abstract

The Bayh-Dole Act allows universities to exploit patents on their federally sponsored re- search. University laboratories therefore have two sources of funds: direct grants from sponsors and income from licensing. Tax credits for private R&D also contribute, because they increase the profitability of licensing. Because Bayh-Dole profits are a source of funds, the question arises how subsidies and Bayh-Dole profits fit together. I show that subsidies to the university can either "prime the pump" for spending out of Bayh-Dole funds, or can crowd it out. Because of crowding out, if the sponsor wants to increase university spending beyond the university's own target, it will end up funding the entire research bill, just as if there were no profit opportunities under the Bayh-Dole Act. A subsidy system that requires university matching can mitigate this problem.
(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)

Suggested Citation

  • Suzanne Scotchmer, 2013. "Patents in the University: Priming the Pump and Crowding Out," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 61(3), pages 817-844, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:jindec:v:61:y:2013:i:3:p:817-844
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1111/joie.12023
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Erkal, Nisvan & Scotchmer, Suzanne, 2007. "Scarcity of Ideas and Options to Invest in R&D," Department of Economics, Working Paper Series qt2hq9s5kg, Department of Economics, Institute for Business and Economic Research, UC Berkeley.
    2. Philippe Aghion & Mathias Dewatripont & Jeremy C. Stein, 2008. "Academic freedom, private‐sector focus, and the process of innovation," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 39(3), pages 617-635, September.
    3. Suzanne Scotchmer, 1999. "On the Optimality of the Patent Renewal System," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 30(2), pages 181-196, Summer.
    4. Saul Lach & Mark Schankerman, 2008. "Incentives and invention in universities," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 39(2), pages 403-433, June.
    5. Marie C. Thursby & Jerry Thursby & Swasti Gupta-Mukherjee, 2007. "Are There Real Effects of Licensing on Academic Research? A Life Cycle View," NBER Chapters, in: Academic Science and Entrepreneurship: Dual Engines of Growth, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Sampat, Bhaven N. & Mowery, David C. & Ziedonis, Arvids A., 2003. "Changes in university patent quality after the Bayh-Dole act: a re-examination," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 21(9), pages 1371-1390, November.
    7. Rafferty, Matthew, 2008. "The Bayh-Dole Act and university research and development," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 37(1), pages 29-40, February.
    8. Rebecca Henderson & Adam B. Jaffe & Manuel Trajtenberg, 1998. "Universities As A Source Of Commercial Technology: A Detailed Analysis Of University Patenting, 1965-1988," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 80(1), pages 119-127, February.
    9. Albert Banal‐Estañol & Inés Macho‐Stadler, 2010. "Scientific and Commercial Incentives in R&D: Research versus Development?," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 19(1), pages 185-221, March.
    10. Richard Jensen & Jerry Thursby & Marie C. Thursby, 2010. "University-Industry Spillovers, Government Funding, and Industrial Consulting," NBER Working Papers 15732, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. Scott Stern, 2004. "Do Scientists Pay to Be Scientists?," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 50(6), pages 835-853, June.
    12. Pierre Azoulay & Waverly Ding & Toby Stuart, 2009. "The Impact Of Academic Patenting On The Rate, Quality And Direction Of (Public) Research Output," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 57(4), pages 637-676, December.
    13. Mowery, David C. & Ziedonis, Arvids A., 2002. "Academic patent quality and quantity before and after the Bayh-Dole act in the United States," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 31(3), pages 399-418, March.
    14. Ted O'Donoghue & Suzanne Scotchmer & Jacques‐François Thisse, 1998. "Patent Breadth, Patent Life, and the Pace of Technological Progress," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 7(1), pages 1-32, March.
    15. Grimaldi, Rosa & Kenney, Martin & Siegel, Donald S. & Wright, Mike, 2011. "30 years after Bayh-Dole: Reassessing academic entrepreneurship," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 40(8), pages 1045-1057, October.
    16. Nisvan Erkal & Suzanne Scotchmer, 2009. "Scarcity of Ideas and R&D Options: Use it, Lose it or Bank it," NBER Working Papers 14940, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    17. Thursby, Jerry G. & Thursby, Marie C., 2011. "Has the Bayh-Dole act compromised basic research?," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 40(8), pages 1077-1083, October.
    18. Richard R. Nelson, 1959. "The Simple Economics of Basic Scientific Research," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 67, pages 297-297.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Baldini, Nicola, 2009. "Implementing Bayh-Dole-like laws: Faculty problems and their impact on university patenting activity," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 38(8), pages 1217-1224, October.
    2. Banal-Estañol, Albert & Jofre-Bonet, Mireia & Lawson, Cornelia, 2015. "The double-edged sword of industry collaboration: Evidence from engineering academics in the UK," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 44(6), pages 1160-1175.
    3. Wipo, 2011. "World Intellectual Property Report 2011- The Changing Face of Innovation," WIPO Economics & Statistics Series, World Intellectual Property Organization - Economics and Statistics Division, number 2011:944, April.
    4. Tomás del Barrio-Castro & José García-Quevedo, 2009. "The determinants of university patenting: Do incentives matter?," Working Papers XREAP2009-14, Xarxa de Referència en Economia Aplicada (XREAP), revised Nov 2009.
    5. Albert Banal-Estañol & Inés Macho-Stadler, 2007. "Financial Incentives in Academia: Research versus Development," Working Papers 295, Barcelona School of Economics.
    6. Francesco Lissoni, 2013. "Intellectual property and university–industry technology transfer," Chapters, in: Faïz Gallouj & Luis Rubalcaba & Paul Windrum (ed.), Public–Private Innovation Networks in Services, chapter 7, pages 164-194, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    7. Leila Tahmooresnejad & Catherine Beaudry, 2019. "Collaboration or funding: lessons from a study of nanotechnology patenting in Canada and the United States," The Journal of Technology Transfer, Springer, vol. 44(3), pages 741-777, June.
    8. Albert Banal‐Estañol & Inés Macho‐Stadler, 2010. "Scientific and Commercial Incentives in R&D: Research versus Development?," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 19(1), pages 185-221, March.
    9. Fini, Riccardo & Lacetera, Nicola & Shane, Scott, 2010. "Inside or outside the IP system? Business creation in academia," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(8), pages 1060-1069, October.
    10. Wesley M. Cohen & Henry Sauermann & Paula Stephan, 2020. "Not in the Job Description: The Commercial Activities of Academic Scientists and Engineers," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 66(9), pages 4108-4117, September.
    11. Junghee Han & Jungho Kim, 2016. "Empirical Analysis Of Technology Transfer In Korean Universities," International Journal of Innovation Management (ijim), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 20(08), pages 1-26, December.
    12. Tomás del Barrio-Castro & José García-Quevedo, 2009. "The determinants of university patenting: Do incentives matter?," Working Papers XREAP2009-14, Xarxa de Referència en Economia Aplicada (XREAP), revised Nov 2009.
    13. Stephan, Paula E., 2010. "The Economics of Science," Handbook of the Economics of Innovation, in: Bronwyn H. Hall & Nathan Rosenberg (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Innovation, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 0, pages 217-273, Elsevier.
    14. Lu, Louis Y.Y. & Liu, John S., 2016. "A novel approach to identify the major research themes and development trajectory: The case of patenting research," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 103(C), pages 71-82.
    15. Nicolas Carayol & Elodie Carpentier, 2022. "The spread of academic invention: a nationwide case study on French data (1995–2012)," The Journal of Technology Transfer, Springer, vol. 47(5), pages 1395-1421, October.
    16. Philippe Aghion & Mathias Dewatripont & Jeremy C. Stein, 2008. "Academic freedom, private‐sector focus, and the process of innovation," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 39(3), pages 617-635, September.
    17. Gans, Joshua S. & Murray, Fiona E. & Stern, Scott, 2017. "Contracting over the disclosure of scientific knowledge: Intellectual property and academic publication," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 46(4), pages 820-835.
    18. Hanna Hottenrott & Cornelia Lawson, 2014. "Research grants, sources of ideas and the effects on academic research," Economics of Innovation and New Technology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 23(2), pages 109-133, March.
    19. Tania Babina & Alex Xi He & Sabrina T. Howell & Elisabeth Ruth Perlman & Joseph Staudt, 2020. "The Color of Money: Federal vs. Industry Funding of University Research," NBER Working Papers 28160, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    20. Hottenrott, Hanna & Thorwarth, Susanne, 2010. "Industry funding of university research and scientific productivity," ZEW Discussion Papers 10-105, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • K0 - Law and Economics - - General
    • L00 - Industrial Organization - - General - - - General
    • O34 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Intellectual Property and Intellectual Capital

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:jindec:v:61:y:2013:i:3:p:817-844. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=0022-1821 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.